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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175781">Hungry Hearts Collection</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbvanth/pseuds/cobbvanth'>cobbvanth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Angst, Bathtub Sex, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Cock Warming, Death, Descriptions of Blood, F/M, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Spoilers, Nausea, Overstimulation, Pining, Semi-resolved feelings, Smut, Tags will be updated, Unprotected Sex, Vaginal Fingering</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:14:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,846</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175781</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbvanth/pseuds/cobbvanth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>a compilation of random stories and one-shots. everything posted first on my tumblr @cobbvader :)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Boba Fett x Reader, Boba Fett/Reader, Cobb Vanth x Reader, Cobb Vanth/Reader, Din Djarin x reader, Din Djarin/Reader, The Mandalorian x reader, The Mandalorian/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Harsh Whisper - Prompt | Din Djarin x Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door of the Razor Crest awakens with a mechanical whirl, the large bridge lowering slowly onto the surface of some unbearable corporate sector planet named Bonadan. According to Mando’s tracking FOB, tucked away somewhere is a slimy tax evader whose name you hadn’t bothered to remember, believing the impact he’d have on your life once the Mandalorian brought him back would be zero to none, and that when captured he’d be hauled onto the ship vacuum sealed, then sold for his bounty with nothing more than a whisper and you’d continue to roam through space until the next job rolled around. <b></b></p><p>Except you were wrong. </p><p>The door lands with a colossal thud, but that isn’t the worst part. The sounds of a struggle can be heard from below, Mando’s modulated voice strained through his visor as he works to subdue his target. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue. You’ve been with him long enough to know that eventually, he will overpower his victim and win. You would even go watch if you suspected you wouldn’t get caught up in the crossfire, because there’s nothing more entertaining (<em>and hot</em>) than watching him fight. </p><p>But that hadn’t been when you were putting a particularly grumpy womp rat to bed after he struggled to fall asleep the entire time you’ve been in this solar system, no matter your attempts. It’s only when whatever little green frogs run on must have run low that he finally decided to shut his eyes and stop fussing. The Mandalorian, not through any fault of his own, hadn’t been any help, off scouting the city, however he’s about to get an earful now. </p><p>Quickly checking to see if the child is still asleep, you lower him gently into his crib, then close the door. The steel shuts just as Mando’s boot steps can be heard clamoring up the ladder, and you stand there with crossed arms and stare, relieved he didn’t wake the baby up, but pissed he made so much noise. </p><p>“Could you have been any louder, Mando?” You whisper harshly, gesturing with your hand towards the child’s sleeping quarters. You watch his visor tilt towards the chamber, then back to you, obviously connecting the dots. </p><p>“Fought harder than I thought he would,” he offers as an excuse, the lights of the ship reflecting off his shoulders as he shrugs, then as he steps towards the cockpit. He sits down and presses a few buttons, the hatch suddenly closing and the ship roaring to life. If looks could burn through beskar, you’re sure the back of his head would be a melted mess by now. </p><p>“That pencil-pusher?,” you scoff in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. I finally got the gremlin to go to sleep and you almost woke him up!” </p><p>“He was…adept. I was just as surprised as you are.”  </p><p>“Yes, I could tell.” You retort, moving to sit down next to him in the co-pilot’s chair. Your exhaustion is finally catching up to you, or at least it looks that way because Mando stares, his gaze indecipherable. Usually you catch naps whenever the little one does, but since sleep had eluded him, it was no friend of yours either. </p><p>You almost ask him what the hell he’s looking at when he beats you to it, speaking softly now, whether for your sake or the kid’s (<em>or both</em>), you’re not sure. </p><p>“Sleep. I’ll take care of the kid.”</p><p>“Just as long as you promise not to wake him up,” you grumble, closing your eyes. If the Mandalorian replies, you don’t see or hear it, slipping into repose as the craft takes flight. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Freezing - Prompt | Din Djarin x Fem!Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maker, you’ve never been so cold in your life.</p><p>The system that keeps the Razor Crest climate controlled has proverbially shit the bed; malfunctioned after a particularly precarious dogfight with some low level bounty-hunter that managed to track you down and was a little too big for his britches. Mando dealt with him easily. The fight might have lasted five minutes, if that. Unfortunately, the current bane of your existence had gotten a few hits in despite missing his intended targets and the hull had taken some damage. The silver-lining is that nothing major is too far gone that it can’t wait to be repaired at your next stop. The engines work fine, and most everything is still intact.</p><p>Except, somehow, the kriffing heating stabilizer.</p><p>And with nothing counteracting the harsh temperatures of space, the cockpit has turned into a tundra.</p><p>With freezing, shaky hands you adjust your blanket tighter around your shoulders. You want to kick yourself for not buying anything heavier. The fleece Mando keeps on the ship are military grade, probably the best he could find when he first started bounty hunting and that he hasn’t bothered to replace, meaning they kriffing suck and they’re itchy as hell. Most of the time the ship is warm enough that you don’t feel like you need one, and on nights you do, you usually keep it draped over your hip and that’s enough. Right now, though, is neither of those situations. You feel like you’ve been dropped onto Hoth naked.</p><p>Mando appears unaffected by it. His armor has many layers; three of them, actually, created no doubt with more than just the purpose of keeping him protected in mind. You wonder fleetingly, jealously, if somehow the person who made his clothing had built in some sort of filtering system that recycled the hot air he exhaled through the rest of his armor and kept his body warm. The most you can do to replicate such a thing is blow into your hands. You almost want to reach out and touch his chest plate, just to see if it’s hot.</p><p>“Your shivering is very loud.”</p><p>
  <em>Go kriff yourself, helmet.</em>
</p><p>“That’s because I’m freezing,” you manage to force out between clattering teeth. You burrow yourself further into the swathed blanket and tuck your knees to your chest in an effort to contain your own body heat. So far it isn’t working, but you don’t have too many options unless Mando is suddenly comfortable with becoming cuddle buddies for the night.</p><p><em>Wait</em>.</p><p>“I wouldn’t be if you came over here,” you mention, trying to sound as demure and nonchalant as possible. Your relationship with the Mandalorian isn’t strictly platonic. Maker knows there been a few <em>heated</em> moments shared, but the boundaries beyond that haven’t been carved out, so you’ve never ventured past them, lest you run the risk of ruining what you’ve got with him already. Surely this is well within those limits. You’re just being practical. It’s more effective that you two huddle together rather than brave the cold apart.</p><p>“What are you suggesting?”</p><p>
  <em>
    <b>For Maker’s sake, Mando.</b>
  </em>
</p><p>“That we keep each other from freezing to death. The nearest system is jumps away and we can’t burn that kind of fuel. And these-,” you wiggle the would be tissue paper of a comforter for emphasis, “work for shit. Please, Mando? I’m cold.”</p><p>“Are you flirting with me?”</p><p>
  <em>Whoops. Maybe.</em>
</p><p>There’s a playful sarcasm in Mando’s voice that you could swim in. It isn’t often that he betrays himself like that; most of the time he’s dry and stoic or irritated and angry. It’s fun when he gets annoyed because he’s still so expressive, despite the helmet. But this-this is your favorite.</p><p>“Depends. Are you going to warm me up or not?” You counter, raising your eyebrows at him in question. You open your arms, looking like a little bat with green wings, then make grabby hands at him the best you can with some of your fingers still holding on to the fabric. </p><p>The Mandalorian looks at you and for a moment you think <em>well shit</em>, you finally crossed the line. Then he’s swiveling in his chair, pressing a few buttons on the control panel and coating the compartment in sudden darkness.</p><p>You startle, then blink a few times in an effort to orient yourself again, but all you can make out are milky shapes of objects you aren’t sure are really there. Stars zoom past you as the craft coasts through empty space. However the glow they emit isn’t enough to help you distinguish anything. It feels colder now in the absence of the artificial light. The blueness of your surroundings creating an artificial drop in temperature and you suddenly feel sleepy.</p><p>Then there’s a shuffling sound to your left. You squint as if it’ll help you listen, your mind racing with thoughts of what he could possibly be doing. He certainly isn’t explaining it. Adrenaline speeds your heart when you recognize what sounds like leather hitting the durasteel flooring; <em>his gloves as they drop from his hands.</em></p><p>“Where are you?” you whisper through the shadows, still trying to make out the lines of his broad silhouette. Uncertainly you reach out, groping blindly. A risky move in only that you might look stupid as hell reaching out into empty air searching for him. “Mando, I swear if you scare me we aren’t friends anymore.”</p><p>Beskar. Cool and smooth. Your knuckles hit against it first and you draw back instinctively as if the dull noise your collision with him made might bite you.</p><p>“Right here,” he finally answers, sounding far too pleased with himself, much closer to you than you thought.</p><p>“Mother-kriffing bantha fodder, Mando!” You shove in the direction you think will result in your hand meeting his chest, but your palm ends up shoving the loose cloth of his shoulder instead.</p><p>“Whoa.”</p><p>“I told you not to scare me!” </p><p>You can make out the lines of his helmet as the edges reflect starlight, gleaming dully in the space in front of you. Your vision refuses to settle on something solid, but you know now that if you move forward, you’ll be tumbling into him. </p><p>“Wasn’t intentional,” he replies, sitting down next to you.</p><p>
  <em>Yeah, okay.</em>
</p><p>“Scoot over.” Mando taps your thigh, already moving. You do as you’re told, shuffling around in the dark. In a scramble of awkward movements and fumbling adjustments, Mando maneuvers you so that you’re leaning against him, situated between his spread legs. The bounty hunter then drapes the blanket you had in your hands across your front, protecting you from the chill on both sides. </p><p>“Better?” His voice is right next to your ear, so close you can feel the vibrations of his voice as its worked through the vocoder, a soft tickle at your temple.  </p><p>You nod, the trembling of your body dying down slowly as your fingers and toes begin to regain feeling. It’s like you’ve been dunked in a bath of hot water and you shiver for an entirely different reason. </p><p>“Could be warmer, though.” you mention, testing your limits. You turn your head just enough to catch his visor out of your peripheral; looking for a subtle head-tilt or any acknowledgement at all to your words. </p><p>He answers you instead with his fingers. </p><p>His fingertips skim the inside of your thighs, idle in their movements. It’s as if he’d be content to do this all night; never stray any further or move a step back. They skate along the soft muscle, catch a few times on the fabric of your pants, then resume their trek; their goal seemingly pointless, their destination nowhere. </p><p>Heat encroaches like a slow burning flame; grows from your tummy, travels through your chest and up to your cheeks until you’re panting. Mando, meanwhile, is quiet. If it weren’t for his cock nudged against your back, you’d think he was entirely unaffected. In a sudden act of bravery, you roll your hips backwards and grind your ass against his erection, moaning lowly at the drag of it against you coupled with his delicious fingers. </p><p>Mando grunts, then moves the palm of his left hand so that its splayed out along your inner thigh, spreading your legs wider. His other hand creeps back up your body, dances along your stomach, then dips into the waistband of your pants. “Do you like this?” </p><p>Leaning back against his shoulder, you look up at him through your eyelashes. You can see the underside of his visor where the dark fabric creeps up his neck, bunches a little where it meets his helmet, betraying nothing to the skin underneath. The urge to reach up and tug it down is overcoming. You want just a little peek. Would he be clean shaven? Or would stubble travel down his neck? You lick you’re lips subconsciously, your own digits dancing at your sides, lacking courage to actually touch him like that. </p><p>“I asked you a question,” he reminds, turning his head. You stare up into his face, eyes moving back and forth between where you assume his gaze rests, trying your hardest to remember what the kriff he said to you only seconds before. </p><p>“what?” </p><p>“I asked if you like this,” Mando repeats himself, gliding the hand that isn’t in your pants up your leg, stopping <em>just</em> short of where you’d like him most; the pressure of his fingers tormenting against your thumping pulse. Stars, he could be the death of you and you’d thank him for it. No matter how many of these trysts you have, you aren’t used to being the object of his desire. Every time with him feels like the first. </p><p>You nod a little dumbly, trying to grind against his hand, desperate for more friction. “Yeah, like this a lot.” </p><p>The Mandalorian makes a strained, thoughtful noise, then plunges his hand deeper while the other gives the muscle it rests on a good squeeze. “Good.” </p><p>The tip of his middle finger works in light circles around your opening. You begin to cant, trying without words to get his beautifully rough fingers inside you. He’s too patient, consumed in his work, seemingly ignorant to the suffocatingly slow burn that he’s igniting inside you. Every few moments, he’ll flex the digit and catch you just right, but its never enough and you’re not as tolerant as him. </p><p>“Fuck,” you whimper, hoping he’ll take pity on you. “I need more from you, Mando.” </p><p>The ache that settles itself in your cunt is uncomfortable in the sweetest, most agonizing way. He’s barely done anything and you’re already a live-wire, sensitive to even his most lightest touch so much so that you jerk when he finally, <em>finally </em>dips a finger into your pussy. </p><p>But then he doesn’t do anything. </p><p>“So eager,” he muses, voice impossibly low even as it travels through the modulator, “ask nicely.” He remains a statue, waiting. He’s got you so worked up that even the thin blankets feel to hot now, so you kick them off, frustrated and turned on to the point of pain. You want to complain because <em>holy kriff,</em> when you suggested this you didn’t know he was going to make you work for it; then he starts to remove himself from you and you panic, jumbled words spilling from your lips. </p><p>“<em>Please,”</em> you sound embarrassingly desperate even to your own ears, but you’re far from caring now. “I want your fingers inside me <em>so</em> bad, Mando. Please.” You could cry, throat closing uncomfortably. If he doesn’t show mercy now, you aren’t sure what you’ll do. </p><p>“Good girl.” </p><p>Your suffering finally ends as he begins to pump two solid fingers inside you, curling purposefully with every firm thrust of his hand. You sigh and melt into his warm body behind you, biting your bottom lip forcefully to keep from cumming right then and there. <em>Good girl. He called you a good girl. </em></p><p>Deep, agonizing pleasure nestles itself, swirling around your insides like sparks shooting off a flame. You aren’t going to last long like this, even as you try to drag the bliss out. He’s just too good and you’re so high strung that all it’ll take is a good swipe of your clit to send you careening over the edge. </p><p>“Gonna-gonna make me cum. Please don’t stop,” squirming against him helplessly, your orgasm begins to build, rising to a crescendo that makes your back arch and your toes curl in your boots. The bounty-hunter fucks you with more fervor, the heel of his hands rubbing against your clit in time with his ministrations. You look down at yourself and gasp, loud and filthy, the sight of him using his fingers on you blossoming your lust into a supernova; all consuming and bright. </p><p>You come hard, crying out, contracting and fluttering around him as he continues you to work you through it. He hums, pleased, against your back and it sends vibrations through your lungs and excruciating arousal through your cunt. It isn’t until you slump against him that Mando begins to slow, working you to the point of over stimulation. Careful not to jostle you too much, he removes his fingers from you with a wet sound. </p><p>Everything is covered in a haze. You feel a tear gather in the corner of your eye , then roll down the side of your face. At this point you have no energy to really care about it; you’ve never felt so thoroughly satisfied in your life. Mando’s other hand brushes it away gently, then strokes your hair in soothing motions. He wipes the fingers covered in your wetness on the side of his pants, then uses that hand to reach for the blanket again. </p><p>“Warm enough?” he murmurs, question floating through the air, barely able to penetrate the fog of your senses. </p><p>“Yeah,” you nod, closing your eyes, “warm enough.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Sanctuary | Din Djarin x Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The hull hums with the pressurized vacuum of space and the mechanical whirring of the ship on autopilot. </p><p>Most nights he leaves the door that usually conceals his bed open for easy access, thinking ahead for his future self, preventing any hindrances in his ability to crawl - or rather collapse, the other word implies too much grace - into bed when his limbs are fighting against a tide of exhaustion, already verging towards the edge of calling it quits on him from having to climb up a ramp, carry him through the cockpit, then take him down a few ladder rungs. </p><p>It isn’t just that, though, he does this on the off chance of multiple things - emergencies, for one,</p><p>more than distrustful of the ship’s ancient and worn down mechanics to get the door open if Maker forbid something had happened. It doesn’t help that every repair he makes himself is a sort of guessing game of let’s see how long this will last until it explodes again, fingers crossed it’s not within the next ten seconds. Until he can get whatever damage the Crest has suffered properly looked at, he errs on the side of caution, which turns out to be almost all of the time. </p><p>So the door stays open. </p><p>But tonight is different. </p><p>Parked in a vegetated field on Sorgan, away from the village’s center, the typical drone you fall asleep to most nights has taken on an almost muted effect, like what you imagine it must be like to be inside a glass jar - every noise amplified yet muted, ricocheting around for a bit far after its gone, easy to make you believe you’re hearing something when really nothing is there, or like it still exists far after the initial sound is gone. Peaceful, almost. Calming. </p><p>Not much in the way of noise from outside the ship gets through its exterior save for the particularly loud ones, although you like to think you can hear the nighttime singing of a planet so full of life anyway, comforting and quiet the same way it was on your planet, especially in the sticky summertime, crickets and katydids and lightning bugs loud and bright in a backdrop of dark green and deep blue. </p><p>Blades of grass against your bare feet. Your cheeks still warm with a day’s worth of sunshine far after the star has gone to bed. </p><p>Sometimes you describe it to the baby, hoping he understands. Not just the summers, but the winters, too. On Ilum, a world gone quiet. The way the snow might feel, the different kinds, different but similar to this planet, bringing his little claws to your mouth, cupped between your own, and blowing on them the way your mother might have when you were young - soothing away the cold with your thumbs, watching with the Child in your lap as the Mandalorian worked. </p><p>Warm, now, and normally a place so confined like this would make you nervous for the same reasons it would make Mando nervous too, but you don’t mind it. </p><p>Not with the Child in your lap again, running hot and soft and clean after his bath, the tiny fingers of his right hand reaching towards the storybook you have propped against your knees, his other holding a silver packet of cookies tight in his fist that crinkles with every excited gesture, babbling nonsensically about the pictures that appear on each page. </p><p>A fortunate find, although not really a find at all. Your travels rarely afford you the leisure time to do something like shop, and when you manage to do it it isn’t for anything besides the necessities - food, medical supplies, water - feeling guilty that you aren’t able to get things for the baby that you’d might like to otherwise, things like toys, like games, books, desperately trying to squeeze in moments in which you can, but it turns out that you hadn’t had to go looking for this at all. Your last visit had made an impression on the village, and the children, upset that you all had to leave after so many weeks together, had asked that a book be made just in case the Mandalorian ever decided to return, so the Child would have something to remember them by when you had to leave again. </p><p>Omera had explained it all to you, pleased if not a little heartbroken by the children’s bittersweet hope that this time you’d be staying permanently, and you could tell that she secretly held that hope, too, but knew better than they did that for as long as the Child was in danger, that could never happen - both for his safety and for this planet’s. </p><p>So she contributed in any way that she could, had done the illustrations herself, beautiful and impressive in her attention to detail, each page filled with a different scene that must have taken weeks to perfect. The paper had been hand-made as well, the book leather-bound, and upon realizing that Mando had earned his signet, a Mudhorn was branded onto the cover by one of the elders, an experienced craftswoman that shifted her focus to blacksmithing after the Klatoonian raiders invaded, having usually only created baskets and nets for the krill farmers, but now created defensive weapons as well. She had been the one to give it to you with steady, ancient hands, an affection and appreciation in her expression so sincere that it had you stopping, placing your palm over hers, so unused to the genuine and unassuming kindness people can have that you forgot after months of being relentlessly chased and sought after and shot at that goodness still exists - that gifts are things that don’t need to be repaid, that you don’t need to bargain or trade for. </p><p>You waited until nightfall to read it. </p><p>Clean and full, you travelled down from the cockpit with the baby in your arms, his silver wrapper of cookies pinched between your pointer and middle fingers, his book tucked beneath your arm, making yourself comfortable on Din’s bed, sneakily swiping away crumbs whenever they fell from the goblin’s messy hands. </p><p>“The heroes destroyed the droid and saved the village.” Your voice is sweet and low, the Child’s cheeks balmy and pleasant where he’s got them pressed against your own. “The danger was gone. They had saved the day, but it was time for them to say goodbye.” </p><p>You look up as the automated door slides open with a soft swoosh and into the helmet standing in the doorway, your instinctive smile and the moment that follows saccharine and tender. </p><p>“This made the children sad. They knew the heroes and their son had to go now, but they had liked playing with their friend. They would miss him very much.” </p><p>The Mandalorian removes his helmet. His boots and chest plate follow, methodical and careful not to interrupt. When he’s finished, you scoot over to make room for him as he climbs in beside you and your son, his chest hot and annealing against your back, secure and safe and calming.</p><p>“He made quite an impression on them.” Din murmurs against your ear, low and quiet. </p><p>You roll your lips between your teeth as you turn the page, trying not to laugh. “So did you. That’s probably why Omera chose not to include the part where you trip.” </p><p>The bounty-hunter huffs, amusement in his voice. “I didn’t trip.”  </p><p>“Right, okay. Your boot caught on a tree root and you mistepped with grace.” </p><p>“I don’t remember that happening.” </p><p>“No? You want me to ask her to illustrate it for you?” </p><p>“You’re impossible.” </p><p>You look over your shoulder at him and grin. “And you definitely tripped, but we aren’t admitting to those things right now, so…” </p><p>Mando makes a face, then gestures towards the book with his chin. “Keep reading. I like the sound of your voice.” </p><p>Your chest pools with affection as you turn your attention back to the book, the Child making a few noises of agreement, impatiently helping you flip to the other page. </p><p>“Okay, where were we, baby? They would miss him very much.” You begin reading again, pointing to the drawing taking up most of the page, one of the village’s children’s handwriting carefully written beneath. “So much that when they left, a few of them cried.” </p><p>The baby looks up at you with wide, pitiful eyes, pointing to the depiction of the kids standing together in front of their homes waving and the hovering cart the three of you had departed in.</p><p>You look down at him and notice the way they begin to well up, his expression wrinkling, his mouth tugged into a deep, sorrowful and heartbreaking frown. Din sits up straighter and you begin to speak, gentle and soft in an effort to comfort him and explain. </p><p>“Hey, hey. Don’t cry. It’s okay. I know you missed them too, sweet boy, but that’s part of saying goodbye. It’s what makes spending time with each other meaningful.”  </p><p>Taking a hold of his wrist, you kiss the back of his hand, then the top of his head. The Child murmurs something, leaning into your side, burying his face into your robes. Mando, without a word, places his hand over your own where you still have the baby’s in your palm, the pad of his thumb smoothing over the skin of your knuckles. </p><p>You don’t need to explain the significance of your words to him. </p><p>“And look!” With your free hand, you point to much happier and smiling faces. “Although they were sad their new friend and his family had to go, they were glad because they could think about all the memories of their time together, and be happy remembering them.”  </p><p>He peeks at the page with hesitance, and upon seeing that what you said was true, reaches for the book and tugs it towards his chest, hugging it. </p><p>“Alright, little one.” You adjust the baby in your lap so that he’s facing you now and do your best to be stern, aware that bedtime in these parts means battle against a worthy and better equipped adversary, your heart too soft and his face way too cute. “Time for bed.” </p><p>You’re about to clamor your way out of the bed when Mando places his hand on your back. </p><p>“The kid should sleep with us tonight.” </p><p>You stop and look back at him, the baby already squirming out of your hands and crawling up towards his father, his book dragging behind him like a triangular turtle shell. “You sure?” </p><p>It isn’t that you don’t want him to, but you know that this could set a dangerous precedent. He starts this habit now, and soon there will be no more nights spent alone in the privacy of his bed. </p><p>“Yeah, it’ll be nice to have the both of you here.” </p><p>Reaching forward, you shut off the light before laying back. </p><p>The baby finds settles himself in the space between your chin and knees where you’re slightly curled in on yourself, Din curled against you, everything drenched in darkness, his body like honey, pliant and familiar, healing and melting you from the inside out, warm muscle tender beneath your fingertips when you reach behind and touch him - feather light and careful as they drag across his hips and legs. With your other, you glide your fingers up and down the child’s back, lulling him off to sleep. </p><p>The air trills. Mando laces your fingers together. </p><p>Then. </p><p>“You need to get a new mattress.” </p><p>“I’m not kidding. It’s like laying down on rolling pins. No wonder you’re so stiff.” </p><p>Din exhales against the back of your neck. “Goodnight.” </p><p>You smile and close your eyes. “Goodnight.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Sleeplessly Embracing (You) | Boba Fett x Fem!Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>au! in which boba had been the one to retrieve the child’s bounty - set and written pre-the mandalorian season 2 - no spoilers</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Unease rests in your gut like a large rock; jagged around its edges, serrated almost, making your stomach churn, acidic and volatile. </p><p>But you’ve thrown up every last bit of your dinner already that there can’t be anything left, your stomach empty, yet the stone still doesn’t reveal itself, remains twisted among your intestines, even as you dry heave and shake from the adrenaline of your nausea. </p><p>You’ve never been so terrified in your life. </p><p>Your hands waiver like upset, worried birds as they help you to pull yourself up and off the refresher floor, your left smacking weakly at the vacc-tube handle a few times before your fingers finally manage to catch the cool metal of it, its contents disappearing within seconds.</p><p>The atmosphere feels semi-solid, murky - thick like a bog filled with weeds and you push through it slowly, fighting against an invisible tide.</p><p>You get to the durasteel sink on trembling legs, turn on the faucet and splash water into your face, let the droplets drip onto the shiny reflective counter-top, some inky black with the residue of your mascara, some reflecting the compartment like a mirror in a fishbowl. And for a second you keep your head down, listening to the running water, staring into the minuscule silver pools as if they’d be able to calm the trembling of your muscles beneath your skin. </p><p>The small, square mirror shoots back at you your visage like a striking, unfamiliar photograph of a stranger that shares your face - the dark circles under your eyes deep with hues of blue and purple, lash line ringed with red and it’s almost as if you can feel the weight of them dragging down against your cheeks, emphasizing your exhaustion. You bring your palms to your eyes, cool from the water, and press them against their sockets until tiny black dots dance against the curtain of your eyelids, then drag your middle and ring fingers underneath them, hoping to alleviate the pressure. </p><p>It doesn’t do much but it’s enough to have you taking a deep, stilted breath. Opening your eyes again and blinking.</p><p>You turn off the nozzle and dry your face, the towel thin and coarse - something else that needs to be replaced, added to the mental checklist harbored in your head along with a thousand other things that need to get done or need doing. </p><p>It’s been a long night; so long in fact that you’re not certain how much time has passed - not that the vastness of space differentiates between night and day, but your circadian rhythm has been upset to some degree, hiccuping you into a sort of mixed semi-conscious state in which you’re sure your mind is consuming its own brain cells to keep itself and you awake, or at least to support your eyelids and keep your feet moving - the epinephrine leaving your system in a great, collapsing crash. </p><p>The weight of your bereavement still hangs from a knot in your esophagus as the door to the refresher slides open. You take a step forward and it closes with the soft ‘whoosh’ of something automated, then it’s quiet again; as noiseless as the starry void the ship glides through; but not a comforting kind of silence, the kind that is usually disturbed by an undercurrent of muted sounds - familiar breathing, the rustling of sheets as loved ones shift in their sleep. This is the kind of muted reticence that could set a person’s teeth on edge, found only sticking and dripping in a place where something tragic has happened, can fill a person with something so unsettling they can feel it in their spines, each vertebrae kissed by a weightless static that has them recoiling inward on themselves - their bodies screaming at them to act yet their muscles, their bones, every primal sense at their most basic function betraying them by keeping them locked in a temporary state of mild paralysis. </p><p>Abundant with a grief so thick it’s suffocating. </p><p>The cockpit still reeks with the putrid sharpness and rust smell of dried blood, twisted now with the tangy chemical smell of antiseptic - even with all the scrubbing you had done, it seemed to want to stick to every particle, every surface, never to be alleviated - rushing you with a wave of memories so harsh that you sway just a little bit, having to place your hands against the nearest surface to keep yourself balanced. </p><p>The air in the cabin feels like something you could hurt yourself against, imbuing your lungs and sinuses so you could taste it immediately as it covered the back of your throat. You have to remind yourself physically that you’re still here, pinching at the thin tender skin between your thumb and pointer finger until the pain is so sharp you have to let go. </p><p>The night had been long but at least it’s over. </p><p>He’s safe. </p><p>You look at him with weary eyes. </p><p>Boba lays on his back in the dark, battered and beaten, a padded green mat you had pulled out of a compartment in the wall beneath him to keep him comfortable, stripped of his chest plate and gloves and cape. He’s spread out, one hand resting on his chest near his collarbones while the other is stretched as if he were reaching for something. If you strain your ears you can hear the sound of his ragged breathing as it’s filtered through the vocoder, finally even but still too sluggish, too slow The bandages around his torso should do fine for now - not enough to ease the sinking feeling accompanying the fear tightening your chest that you hadn’t done a good job, but he isn’t bleeding anymore, so it’ll have to do until you land. Until he can be properly treated. </p><p>If he’s still alive by then. </p><p>It’s still a few hours to Tatooine and you can’t afford to burn the fuel required to jump through space to get there faster. </p><p>So you wait. </p><p>You wait and hope to fucking God that nothing else happens. </p><p>Looking at him feels like the moments before and after falling - when the gravity is off and the world spins just a little and you go to brace yourself but you can’t because your organs are floating inside your thoracic cavity, your heart in your throat only to suddenly have your feet planted so firmly on the ground it almost feels like you’d go right through it, your bones bending like branches and snapping like twigs at the force in which you collide; feeling so impossibly heavy that you’re certain the very heavens are pushing down on you with the fury of all their wrath. </p><p>Maker, please keep him breathing. </p><p>If you had been smart, you would have seen this coming. If you had been smart, you would have warned him - would have suggested something different, some safer course of action or maybe you would have kept him from going at all and if that meant he’d be angry with you or kriff, even fire you, you wouldn’t have cared because those two scenarios are infinitely better than what happened because you weren’t smart enough. </p><p>Your only consolation is that you got him back to the ship in time to leave before things got any worse - that the child is still safe, sleeping soundly shielded from the aftermath by a door and wrapped in warm blankets; content, unaware.  </p><p>You had watched the scene unfurl in split-second, cracked snapshots like fractured and damaged footage from a holocam, exact details blurred into approximations, your brain unable to handle the trauma of keeping the images of it stored in their entirety: the bounty stumbling to his feet, bloody and beaten, fingers reaching towards a blaster holstered onto the meat of his thigh; barely able to stand but strong enough to take a hold of it and point - the way the air around it shifted as he pulled the trigger, exploding briefly in a bright renaissance of red the way a flame does just before it grows; the shot hitting its target, Boba crumpling to the ground. </p><p>And your voice - high pitched and screaming, hoarse from shouting at him to <em>move, Fett, he’s not -</em></p><p>But it doesn’t do you any good and if he had heard your warning it had come too late for him to register because the shot just like - goes right through him, strikes in that awful fucking break in his armor where the beskar doesn’t quiet cover his middle, the armor he does have covering the lower part of his stomach not as durable, a different fabric, isn’t enough to really keep him that protected, right above his belt. </p><p>He had been quick, too, though - set off returning fire in the bounty’s direction just before his body hit the dusty surface of that fucking backwater planet and made sure that he got him; made sure that you were as safe as you were going to be for the moment as you lingered somewhere in his periphery, hidden behind large wooden crates that looked like they might explode into splinters if the wind blew too hard, just close enough for him to keep track of but always out of reach which was good - good because you weren’t in direct danger, orbiting the vision of the enemy, too, so <em>you’d be fine even if he wasn’t. </em></p><p>Then you had moved, breaking through the hazy aftermath, trying not to cough as dust mixes with the curtain of smoke that floats suspended in the air like a thick grey blanket, something to your right bleeding with flames, closing the gaping distance between you and Boba’s body and falling so hard to your knees that the force of it had torn at the coarseweave and left the joints aching. </p><p>Then you were speaking so fast that the words seemed as if they were rolling down a hill instead of coming out of your mouth, like water over rocks, tumbling from your lips in half-finished, frenzied sentences because he wasn’t moving - wasn’t saying anything back or even fucking trying and it was if you’d been hurtled through space, shot out of an airlock; as if something were expanding from somewhere inside of you, being tugged outward by some unseen claw that dug and dug and dug until its talons were secure, this something inside of you oozing around its puncture marks, until was constricting and twisting and then <em>ripping.</em> All of it followed by a numbness that felt like it was setting every atom you’re composed of into atrophy. </p><p>He wasn’t responding - wasn’t doing anything at all even as you struggle to get him upright and that’s when the first wave of revulsion hits; your fingers pressed against the spongy flesh of his abdomen, coming away sticky and hot as you attempted to drag him back to the ship, but he was too heavy - so much bigger and taller than you are and it made you want to fucking vomit, the fear of it, the fear of being unable to help him; that he might die on this maker forsaken planet for absolutely no reason at all other than he was trying to keep food in your mouth and the child a little safer. </p><p>You swallowed it. The sour bile that creeped its way up your esophagus. Coming up in waves, massed and unbreachable. Each step was difficult and only became harder the closer to the hull that you got, shaking so hard that it was like your bones might break with the force in which your muscles were moving, and it felt like you were stepping in slow motion - Boba’s dead weight against you, but you let the fury burning white-hot somewhere just below your sternum as momentum; anger at yourself for not being quick enough, anger at the nameless piece of shit crumpled inward on himself behind you, anger at the bounty hunter, even, for making you have to do this - for putting you through so much in less than thirty seconds - for leaving you to carry his lifeless body through a maze of debris and flurries of mortar ash and soot. </p><p>Your staggered breathing cuts through the air as you stepped onto the boarding ramp, dread crawling down every vertebrae as you got him inside and laid him down, wiping away the crimson on your pants before going to close the hatch; the metal rising slowly, sealing you away from the rest of this world. </p><p>The moments after that are harder to follow - or maybe you have already blocked them out, erased them to keep yourself from the agony of reliving every instant of those two hours - trying to strip him of his armor, trying to make sure he was alive, wanting so desperately to take his fucking helmet off to check if he was actually breathing and you weren’t just feeling your own pulse reflected back at you in the arteries of his wrist and neck, but knowing you couldn’t - knowing that even if it meant something disastrous you couldn’t bring yourself to disrespect him like that, so you got up and found the medpac instead, could barely contain the way your hands rattled, your fingers digging into the plastic as you carried it over to him and opened it; pulling out its contents hoping to find something that wouldn’t be useless - something that could help - finding only bacta and dressings and a roll of thin medical tape, unsure if it would be enough or if it was even in date but unwilling to not try it anyway; applying the gooey medicine to his stomach and tearing off pieces of the adhesive with your teeth, the prayer in your head like a chant to <em>please Maker let this work.</em> </p><p>After you had paced the floor, walking around as if by moving you’d discover something else to do - something definitive, even though all you were doing was wasting energy you didn’t have, but the exercise of searching kept you busy - kept you from destroying yourself with guilt.</p><p>Which brings you to now. To the empty, isolating night of space putting on flesh and blackness. </p><p>You move forward without command, running mostly on autopilot save for the parts of you that are still bubbling with panic - no longer the jittery, shaking kind of panic but the severe, quieting type; the kind that’s clammy and keeps your jaw shut as if it had been wired that way. </p><p>You kneel on his left, hover for a second trying to figure out what you want to do - how your hands can help, if they’ll even help, then decide that you really shouldn’t touch him at all. You’ve never seen him so fragile, suspended in this weird liminal space in which he is both still himself and someone else. You almost have yourself half-convinced that any second now, he’ll sit up and return to the pilots chair, leaving you to stare at his back as he says something about the kid or maybe grumbles about the bounty - normal things, normal actions, things that you are used to.</p><p>Sitting, you lean against the wall. The hull hums with a deafening white when you close your eyes. The weight of every action you’ve taken falls heavily away from your bones, yet still attached - just further off. Suspended, sort of, from every throbbing muscle stretched and filled with acid from exertion. It feels good, in a way. </p><p>You wiggle your toes in your boots, stretch your ankles by pointing your feet forward, then back. </p><p>You open your eyes again. </p><p>“You know…” You speak into the silence, voice sounding weird and foreign as it pierces the space between your bodies. “If you die, I’m going to be pissed.” </p><p>The laughter that crawls up from your esophagus isn’t one borne of humor. It’s splintered and choked and exhausted in its cadence, sharp around its edges, filled with every ounce of pain that’s accumulated on the curves of your ribs like dust on a windowsill, or grime beneath fingernails. </p><p>“When you found me on Canto Bight, I thought that maybe you had me confused for someone else, someone you knew…I was just some thief, but then you said my name and I was so annoyed because I was planning on stealing from you that night, but also<em> terrified.</em>” Your rest your head against the cool metal wall. “Your reputation really precedes you, Fett…knowing you now, though, I know you don’t have any friends.”</p><p>The laugh that passes this time is more genuine, a ghost of trembling levity - bursting with the suddenness of the memory as it resurfaces in your consciousness, but still laced with heartache and the sort of nostalgia that comes with these kind of things - these kind of moments. Weighed down, bobbing with an ocean tide in the sea of your misery. </p><p>There’s a long, deep pause. The hull becomes abrupt in its reticence again, as if the absence of your words, instead of leaving the air as it had been, had taken chunks out of it instead. </p><p>You take a breath. Exhale. And the way your nose begins to burn isn’t surprising, releasing your grief and letting it out a little bit at a time, like how you’d take the lid off a bottle of something carbonated to keep it from exploding all at once. </p><p>You look down into your lap at your hands, as if the answer to your failures were hidden somewhere among the lines of your palms. </p><p>“I can’t do this by myself.” Your confession catches on the prongs of your emotions, trips and tumbles about clumsy and half-pleading. </p><p>Boba remains as he’s been - breathing shallow and inaudible. You don’t know if he can hear you. You don’t know if that matters. </p><p>For a while you just sit like that, bathing in your grief until the waters are murky - until all you feel and are feeling blends together in this blurred continuum and time ceases to be real. There’s no you. No him. Just vague understandings and empty shadows as if you were existing outside yourself but also within - conscious of your heartbeat but separate from it. </p><p>Until the next wave hits, harder than the last and more aggressive in its approach - makes it feel as if your throat were being constricted from the inside, a pressure deep and inescapable behind your eyes and settled on the roof of your mouth. </p><p>You shift a little, hesitant and scared and feeling far more alone than you have in a very long time, then all at once, moving to lay next to him, taking your hand into his own - afraid of how cold they are, fearful of the roughness in which contains little life, scared that if it weren’t dark, you might see how colorless they are, too. </p><p>
  <em>“Please don’t make me do this by myself.” </em>
</p><p>Slowly, inch by creeping inch, the world is swallowed. </p><p>By the time you’re fully awake, you’re already sitting up - blinking,  unsure and unnerved about why it’s not clearing anything up, reaching next to you, patting the space his body had been, alarmed when all your hand does is collide with emptiness and nothing else. The hull is darker, somehow, quieter too, like the engine had been shut off and it’s as if you’ve gone blind - stress induced, maybe, or maybe you’re just not focusing; just not taking in anything in its entirety because you had fallen asleep and you shouldn’t have and now everything is tilted, not exactly as it had been and God, if anything has happened to Boba while you were <em>fucking asleep</em> you’ll never forgive yourself - </p><p>“Woah, kid.” </p><p>A movement, a rustle of something next to you that you think might be leather rubbing against leather or just leather creaking in general, then a more solid one followed by a hissed, caught off wince. “Calm down.” </p><p>A voice you recognize. </p><p>A touch that you don’t. </p><p>A hand, too, <em>warm</em> - still gloveless, on your shoulder, your forearm, finally your wrist, working against the tide of your buoying hysterics.</p><p>Your heart constricts with a mounting, ominous feeling of dread and worry and guilt for all you’ve processed yet haven’t fully brought to conscious thought - understanding that if Boba is missing, that if you had been asleep and unaware and unable, the baby must be gone, too, which only fuels the fucking roaring house fire of self loathing beginning to settle itself low in your stomach, flames burning beneath your jaw. </p><p>But he’s speaking again and this time his words impress themselves upon you with their meaning. He’s speaking, so he isn’t gone. He’s speaking, so the child is okay. He’s speaking, so he’s alive. </p><p>“You’re-I-” You breathing catches, awareness of him and of you making your skin prickle. </p><p>“Your stomach, Fett.” You go to reach for it, to touch it, to make sure that he isn’t spilling his guts and viscus onto the durasteel floor, but his hold on you keeps you from doing anything - strong, still, surprisingly, and firm, holding you back. </p><p>“Hurts.” He clarifies, then adds. “‘M fine.” </p><p>No, not fine. Far from fine. Very, very far from fine. </p><p>You notice then that he’s only marginally upright, using the wall to support himself, semi-slumped against it, the hand that isn’t around your wrist against his abdomen. You can’t imagine how painful it must be - the hurt radiating outward like ultraviolet rays of a blaring sun, throbbing with the tempo of his heartbeat. One beat. Then another. Each sharp and stinging and penetrating. The bacta had kept him alive, sealed the wound, has started beginning to form pink and tender scar tissue, but that’s about it. How long has he been conscious and like this? Silently suffering, waiting for you to wake up? </p><p>“You took a risk saving me. It wouldn’t have been worth it if you weren’t able to drag me to the ship. You should have taken the child and gone.” He speaks clearly, far more clearly than you’re used to, and you realize that along with his gloves and most of his chest armor, he’s missing the helmet as well. </p><p>You find it seated next to his thigh, dully illuminated by the cast of whatever light is filtering into the hull which is almost none at all - not enough to see his face, not enough to permeate your crawling fears and burn them into nothingness. </p><p>“And what - just leave you there to die?” </p><p>“Yes-”</p><p>“<em>-No.</em> No way. That was never going to happen.” </p><p>“It’s what I would have done. I was dead weight.”</p><p>He’s lying and he knows it. You do too. That’s not what he would have done - far from it, actually, but it’s okay to say things like that because it’s him he’s talking about and not you. Still, bitterness bites at your teeth and makes you snarl, petulant and angry that he’d believe his life was worth so little - that you could have just left him there to die and rot like he was nothing, nobody, like he doesn’t know how desperately in love with him you are. </p><p>“Yeah well, you’d actually be dead if it weren’t for me, so shut the fuck up.” </p><p>You clammer to your feet, fight the tears that make your nose twitch and scrunch up, bringing your fingers to your lips and worrying the cuticle of your thumb with your pointer fingernail. Every part of you is strained. Cracked. Pulled and tugged and slowly being ripped apart. </p><p>You circle each other like planets unmoored. What you harbor for him has existed, been manifested, for a long time as an absence, a nonpresence - not because it didn’t or does not exist, but because it has always been held in secret; tucked away in the deep recesses of your chest, right above your diaphragm - being and taking on form the way secret things always are: caught between modes; both being and not being. </p><p>Except it doesn’t really matter if your feelings had been more concrete because he’s good at reading people - at finding these hiding places, turning shadow into object, object into being, being into something solid. </p><p>So he knows and yet he’d still tell you to leave him. Like that could have ever been an option. </p><p>He says your name - weak and wanting and quiet. </p><p>You turn to face him.</p><p>“It’s unfair…and I know you didn’t mean it that way, but it hurts, too…” You watch the outline of him shift. It’s difficult to really determine what he’s doing, but you know without much forethought that he’s listening. </p><p>“I wouldn’t have been able to leave, even if it meant dying with you. And maybe that’s selfish and fucked up, but I mean it. It felt like the entire world had collapsed…like I forgot how to breathe. <em>I’ve never been more scared in my life. </em>And I never want to feel that way again.” </p><p>The emotion in your voice makes it waver, makes it shake and become delicate and the more time you spend trying to explain to him that his altruism is painful the more you feel like you’ve been pelting stones at stars only for the whole fucking sky to fall down instead. </p><p>“I wouldn’t have recovered.” You whisper, fearing that if you speak any louder, your already fragile inflection might shatter completely. </p><p>Boba says your name a second time. “I’m-” </p><p>“-No. Please don’t. I know that you’re sorry, but it isn’t your fault-” </p><p>“-If something had happened to you, kid-” </p><p>“It was my decision-” You protest. </p><p>“-Doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have-” </p><p>“But it does matter! Quit acting like we’d be better off without you-” </p><p>“-Maybe you are.”</p><p>His admittance takes your breath away and you audibly gasp for it, catching the tail of it somewhere against the roof of your mouth. </p><p>
  <em>“Stop it.” </em>
</p><p>The fierceness in your voice quiets you both. The hull fills with the sort of quiet tension of sky before a soft storm - not the severe, cracking kind that leaves the land drenched and crying, but with the gentle, much needed atmosphere of rain for earth that has been starved. Swaying. Waiting. Patient. Life bringing and restoring. </p><p>“Stop it.<em> Please…</em>” </p><p>He doesn’t say anything, but the space between you is filled with acceptance you know he’s only enduring for your sake. </p><p>You return to the area in which he sits, keeping your distance, and lean against the opposite wall before sinking down it, bringing your knees to your chest.  </p><p>“How long have you been awake?” You breach the quietness, soft and concerned and full of pain.</p><p>“Few hours.” </p><p>“<em>Maker,</em> Fett. Why didn’t you wake me up?” </p><p>“You needed the sleep.” </p><p>You look at him through the darkness with incredible longing. </p><p>“No, I didn’t. Not when it comes to you.” </p><p>There’s another pause, like the last one except this time there’s a rumbling - the beginnings of something stirring; something close to being lost, confusing like the flash of stars caught behind trees - impossible to tell which is true in glittering clarity and light and guidance, or which are just the empty, blank spaces between the leaves. </p><p> “Are you going to interrupt me if I speak?” </p><p>“Not if all you’re going to do is apologize again.” </p><p>“I won’t.” He answers softly. </p><p>“Then no.” </p><p>You think that maybe he’s changed his mind, and what has been consistently left unspoken hangs in the gaps between words and spread like an oily wake, wide and impossible to wade through without having to force each step, with the muck and weight of half-finished sentences and secret, yearning thoughts turned feral and rotting sticking to your ankles. </p><p>Interrupted by flickers of recognition quickly blanketed and suffocated, turning your blood sluggish with its inability to let go of the things that need released - congealed with the aging of your unspoken feelings. </p><p>Until. </p><p>“Thank you.”  </p><p>It’s like his saying it had cut the string suspending your heart; making you become soft, this waxy thing ever dripping with heartbroken affection and the need to be near him, to convince him that he doesn’t need to thank you for anything because you’d do it over and over again without so much as a glance in your direction. </p><p>You’d do and be anything for him. No questions. No hesitation. </p><p>“I-” You don’t even know what to say. You’re welcome sounds too much like the proper answer - like if you said it it would only be because you have nothing else to say, nothing more meaningful - something to fill the lack in your vocabulary. But remaining silent isn’t an option, either, so how do you mold your words to fit a shape you can’t describe? To fit a longing so fucking powerful and all consuming it’s all you are in this moment - just some star burning up hoping that in the meantime you’re giving off enough heat to keep him warm. </p><p>“Yeah.” You end up saying instead, worrying a piece of loose string at the cuff of your pants between your fingers, so caught up in trying to pick the precise words that you’ve failed to notice the way the quiet had begun to stretch and become taut until the very last second, forcing speech instead of sitting idly for it. </p><p>“I should…I should check on the kid.” Slowly, you unravel yourself from the sort of self-conscious ball you put yourself in and begin to get up, making it as far as two steps before his voice is interrupting the stride of your movements. </p><p>“Wait.” </p><p>You stop and turn to look at him. </p><p>“What’s the matter?” Your mind springs back to his stomach, to his injury that you haven’t been able to look at since slapping some medical tape onto it and hoping for the best. </p><p>“He’s with Sing. She took him somewhere safe after we landed.” </p><p>“And you still didn’t wake me?” You’re incredulous, surprised that you hadn’t woken up naturally anyway. </p><p>“It was her idea, but I agreed. You needed the sleep, so we stayed quiet.” He repeats, then goes on to explain. “She found a healer who saw to my stomach - they were impressed with your work.” </p><p>“All I did was cover you in bacta. That didn’t really require any finesse. I didn’t even know it was going to work.” </p><p>“If you hadn’t I’d be dead.” </p><p>You exhale through your nose, but instead of returning to where you had been before, you sink down next to him, resting the back of your head against the wall. </p><p>“Why didn’t you go with him?” </p><p>The Mandalorian shifts and you can feel the almost pressure of his thigh against yours, like the atoms of your bodies are bouncing back and forth towards each other, rushing away just before they touch. </p><p>“I didn’t want you waking up alone.” </p><p>“Fett-” </p><p>“Boba.” </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“Call me Boba.” </p><p>Oh. </p><p>“Boba.” You say, testing the name - letting it remain close to your face, liking the way it feels in your mouth, hoping he knows how safe you’ll keep it. “You don’t get to be mad at me for staying, then.” </p><p>He exhales a chuckle, low and crackled the way fire sounds - and it fills your chest with a similar warmth, makes you smile. </p><p>“I guess not.” </p><p>A silence falls over you both that isn’t uncomfortable, but not quite at ease, either. You break it with a gentle question. </p><p>“What are we doing?” </p><p>He finds your hand, hovers over it, then must finally decide what he wants to do because his fingers are wrapping around your knuckles - calloused and battered and warm. </p><p>“I don’t know.” He answers honestly, softly.  </p><p>He won’t allow himself to unpack all that though - those <em>feelings</em> - whatever they mean. He already feels like he’s doing something he shouldn’t just by being with you - letting you aboard, taking care of you. The implication of being so unsettled - how if he thought hard enough about it he’d maybe realize that this awareness must have submerged and solidified their roots into something he’s significantly lacked - stability, companionship, a <em>home</em> - character flaws, maybe, detrimental to his development in a way that’s possibly fucked him up - a few that have made him ruthless and mean and so cut-off to the point that he almost, <em>almost </em>just let the child go - moved on to the next bounty. He’s good at his job - <em>the best </em>- so his brutality and callousness hadn’t mattered until now. </p><p>You know what you want to be doing, but right now the thought is too new and too heavy, so you fight it away - try to make it become something else before you do something foolish like kiss him. </p><p>But the longer you let yourself fester in thought of him, in these different and new and heavy thoughts, the easier it is becoming to be quietly devoured by them. </p><p>“I’d like to…” Your words are brave things - filled with trepidation, walking into uncertain territory - but brave nonetheless. “Know, I mean. I’d like to know.” </p><p>For a while, they walk around in no man’s land, surrounded by your own exploding thoughts - ones that reprimand you for being bold, exploding into and flying forward with debris disastrous and inundated with regret, but then he’s speaking - hoarse and low and far more open in its cadence than you’re ready for, except maybe you should have expected it - who remains this hardened hurt the way he is? Who has the energy? </p><p>“Me too.” </p><p>Home, though. That word is like a grenade. Dangerous, fragile territory, unstable in a way that makes him feel like if he lingers too long with it in his hands it might blow up in his face. But he can’t deny that the concept is always there - just behind him or around the corner. In the small metal carriage that follows him around.</p><p>Wherever you reside. </p><p>Moving into his lap now, touching him through the inky darkness - hesitant and careful and <em>so, so gentle.</em> </p><p>You who fits so perfectly into his life. You who cares for the baby with so much patience and love he can only imagine the kind of strength it has taken for you to remain that way - the kind of resilience - because there has been more than one instance where he has teetered that edge - gone past it and then some and he can’t tell if he’s returned, if he’s even capable of jumping that fence again. As far as morality goes - as far as being considered a good person, doing the right thing - he just <em>isn’t. </em></p><p>And that doesn’t hurt his feelings. It doesn’t keep him up at night. It is what it is, but he’s got you now. He’s got this kid, this impressionable little green gremlin who makes grabby hands at him and coos whenever you sing. So maybe he should try to do better - to be better, but the question isn’t whether he wants to because<em> kriffing hell </em>he’s trying - it’s whether he can. It’s whether his efforts mean anything at all when they’re being pushed and fought against an impossible current of past experiences and reputation, his own impulses and temper. </p><p>He’s done a lot more fucked up things than give people false pretenses but this somehow - this feels worse. The worst thing he’s ever done, maybe - letting himself invade your space like this - telling himself he doesn’t really know why his gloveless hands glide up the smooth curve of your spine, press lightly into every vertebrae, draw slowly along your shoulder blades - feel the muscle and bone move against his fingers like hidden wings. </p><p>And you were -<em> maker </em>- it was an accident. </p><p>This particular fondness he’s developed for you. This something - unidentifiable and alarming - that had seeped into him slowly, little by little - morphing quietly into a feeling more complicated and a little less acceptable. </p><p>He’d been doing his best to keep it from you - frustrated with his inability to pinpoint exactly the moment his blurred acceptance of you turned to a warmth that bubbles up slow and liquid somewhere in the middle of his chest like sugar over low heat. Peeling back layers of events, certain the instance would reveal itself, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t break the jumble of chaotic fragments - each one tainted with it own sort of struggle; the sharp penetration of blaster fire sweeping past his vision, the volatile smell of singed flesh and burned metal permeating his lungs and senses so thoroughly he could taste it immediately as it stained the back of his esophagus, the fear - desperate and deep seeded, that made his teeth feel like rust and his mouth feel like it had been filled with blood static  - to keep you and the child safe. </p><p>The panicked busyness of market squares - filled with people - packed and hot and claustrophobic - making you stay at his side because he parts them like the sea - forces a sort of rejective negative charge that sends travelers or merchants or anyone, really, flying backwards. </p><p>Then it hit him one night when you were reading - expression pulled into tired concentration as you scrolled through articles, the soft blue glow of the holopad on your face - doing your best to find any information about carnivorous fish eating babies and how to take care of one when it is suddenly thrust into your lap with the simple instruction: <em>‘don’t lose him.’</em>  And you thought that he wasn’t looking because he never looks - never chances the risk associated with staring at you because he can handle a lot of things - more than most, things that would break and shatter people - but he knows he won’t be able to handle the way his heart would hiccup in a weird sort of grief and pity and guilt because he had found you and he had ‘rescued’ you and you had been there - pouring over documents, blinking tiredly at a screen that was beginning to make your eyes sting, forbidding yourself the few hours of sleep you could get to instead make sure you knew enough to properly see after a child he had forced into your care. </p><p>So maybe he was being selfish in retrospection but in his head he was shielding you from a whole heap of other troubles - of heartache and frustration - but truth lies in layers, each of them thin and barely opaque, like a second skin, resisting and ever stretching. Eventually, after becoming old with time and the weight of being held in for so long, flaked and brushed away like chipping paint - revealing each one of its characteristics like a honeycomb of messy emotions and buried feelings until everything is just -<em> there</em>, out in the open, bare and naked. </p><p>But the truth had hit him - and it hit him <em><b>hard. </b></em></p><p>You had looked up - blinked those pretty eyes at him, red-rimmed with strain, wide with confusion and curiosity and maybe a little fear because up until that point he hadn’t been mean but he hadn’t really been that nice either and you, you kriffing<em><b> smiled.</b></em> Bright as sunshine and just as blinding and suddenly he was dizzy with the warmth of it - felt like you could see through the beskar, like you had been seeing through it all along and he had only just noticed - and the knowledge that there was no way out of this, out of these blooming feelings for you, weighed heavy and absolute in the pit of his stomach as an anchor would thrown over the side of a ship, caught in the sinking, sandy resoluteness of an ocean floor.  </p><p>He had spoken to you - can’t remember what the fuck he said - but the words came out like sandpaper, stumbled and a little awkward, the vocoder catching every misstep like the burnish had caught against a splinter and it felt like he was speaking out of a kriffing megaphone disk - entirely too loud and abrasive as the words reverberated in some awful, split harmony inside and outside his helmet. </p><p>You hadn’t seemed to mind it, though - smiled a little wider and turned the holopad around and told him all about what you had found out which wasn’t much, just the basics about general youngling care, but that hadn’t really mattered because you were talking to him and he was listening - enraptured, arrested by the spinning loop his thoughts ran in. </p><p>So he did the only logical thing - he crushed the thoughts down into a finely grained mist, snuffed out whatever remained and ignored the rest, pretended like nothing had changed and that he was okay and like he hadn’t -<em> hasn’t</em> - spent the last however many sleep cycles thinking about you at night while he lays in a cot that has suddenly started to feel entirely too small to contain his body - like it has been incrementally falling in on itself since this revelation, concaving under the pressure of his spine with both of its sides rolling over like giant, growing tidal waves threatening to eventually swallow him whole. </p><p>Nothing had changed externally then - which is good objectively, great actually because the last thing he needs is to lose you to his foolish concessions and he’s almost certain he won’t be able to just stumble upon someone willing to risk it all for some credits again - not anyone as immediately magnetizing as you, at least, not that that’s really his main concern right now because it wouldn’t matter about not finding a replacement, he’s done fine without the company, has preferred it at most points, what would matter though - is that you would be gone. </p><p>He feels like a thief, like he has stolen something from you that could never be replaced, yet he can’t shake the way that this feels right - the two of you waves from the same sea, lapping against each other sleepily. </p><p>And now he’s sitting in the dark with you thinking that you have no idea the kind of hold you have on him, have had on him from the start, the thought repeating over and over in his head, ringing against the sides of his visor like a chant tinged with something that borders on frenzy as he slides his hands up your stomach and the curve of your lower back - the skin taut and tensing and smooth and everything he fucking imagined it would be. He latches on to the steadiness of it, touches you as if as he keeps doing it, familiarizing himself, it’ll take away from his own sensitivity, and the moment stretches - malleable and dripping - with so much equanimity that it feels like he isn’t moving at all. The tax of his palm as it rests just below your sternum suspended. </p><p>“This still okay?” You’re speaking, so mellow and delicate that it doesn’t so much as break the silence as it slips through its cracks, your hands - small and fragile compared to his own - sliding upwards under his shirt, tracing every defect, every ancient cauterized blaster wound, every close call and bloodless incision, avoiding the gauze, before dropping over the broad expanse of his shoulders and echoing the process. Somehow, impossibly, filled with tenderness and not the urge to recoil. </p><p>Boba has to remind himself to process the words rather than just let himself drink up the sound of each syllable, swallowing them whole and tucking them away some place for later. </p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” he replies, and even he is still getting used to the syrupy bass of his unfiltered voice. “Keep going.” </p><p>His instruction - his almost pleading - causes something in your chest to twist, to tighten, spun over and over itself like a cable of rope until you’re hitched on it, unable to expel the air in your lungs. You lift your hand from his back and reach out, brush the sweat-damp tangled waves of his hair out of his face and away from his eyes with the ghost of an impression that barely counts as a full, solid, touch - only able to imagine the way it actually looks, what color it might be, how long it actually is - much longer than you thought it’d be. The same goes for his face, a little rough with stubble as you touch it - solid and masculine, tracing your fingertips over the swooping bridge of his nose and the sharp dip of his cupid’s bow, wondering, picturing. </p><p>“What color are your eyes?” </p><p>Boba sucks in a breath through his teeth, searing heat pooling low in his abdomen. None of this is even that close to erotic yet, but there’s something about your proximity, the way you’re caressing him, your shared breathing, that has him feeling like he’s about to plummet off a cliff’s edge. </p><p>“Brown.” </p><p>Your fingers continue their journey downward, descending over the apple in his windpipe, finding the gentle pulse resting at the underside of his jaw. </p><p>“Your hair?” You whisper after a beat, your mental image of him changing, afraid that if you spoke too loudly or too soon it would - not frighten him more so than make him realize that asking for descriptions like this sort of defeats the purpose of his helmet. </p><p>But he swallows like he’s considering your question and there’s a moment when the silence is only filled by the sound of his own heartbeat. He knows that you can’t see him, but he’s starting to feel the weight of your gaze now - prickly hotly on his neck, and he can picture your eyes, affable and unassuming, doing their best to blink away the obscurity as little by little he reveals parts of himself to you. </p><p>“Brown too.” </p><p>A part of him, deeply veiled and barely viable fighting against the tide of his own desire, is concerned with how effortlessly he’s answering your questions - like he’s betraying himself and this code that the armor by siphoning this loophole. There’s still so many other variables, though; you can know the color and not the shape, know the feel but not the look. </p><p>At least that’s what he’ll tell himself when he thinks about this later. </p><p>“You have stubble.” </p><p>“I do.” </p><p>The tips of your fingers creep along the canvass of his throat, catching slightly on bristles you now know are dark, laid against a landscape you can’t quite mold yet. </p><p>“I pictured you clean-shaven.” </p><p>That must have amused him because he huffs something close to a laugh, setting your heart on fire, and although you can’t see him and he can’t see you, you smile, pleased with yourself. </p><p>“I am…most of the time.” </p><p>Most of the time. That helps. It isn’t much but compared to the months you’ve spent unable to imagine anything other than random and vague guesswork you’ve accumulated based on his height and attitude, these little definitions might as well be gilded. </p><p>“Most of the time?” </p><p>“I’ve been busy.” </p><p>“You’ve been busy.” </p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>“Doing what?” </p><p>His fingers twitch against your back and for a very brief, terrifying second you think that maybe you had said something wrong - that in some way you’ve offended him. It wasn’t your intention to give him the impression that you’ve been ignoring what he’s done and has been doing for you and the child. Kriffing hell, ever since Mos Eisley you’ve been hyper-aware of every move that he makes, and you’re grateful, possibly more than you’d ever be able to put into words, but his sudden silence is quite literally leaving you to stumble in the dark.  </p><p>His inhale gives you a half-second warning to what’s coming, like a flicker of stars against a blackened night sky. </p><p>“Not dying…trying to keep us alive. Normal things.” As Boba answers, he slides his hands further down and over your hips, pressing his fingers in, kneading like he’s trying to make sure you remain a solid presence in front of him - like the very mention of everything else that has existed and will exist outside the walls of the Slave 1 has renewed his unease at losing you - at fucking this up or losing himself. </p><p>“I didn’t mean to-” </p><p>“You didn’t.” He cuts you off, shifting slightly, moving forward no more than an inch, really - so much nearer all of a sudden and you hadn’t realized how close he was until the hot heat of his breath is bathing against your breasts, close enough that if you feel like if you inhaled deeply, his lips would brush across the tops. “It’s alright.” </p><p>It’s quiet again save for the minute drag of fabric as your shirt is lifted over your head followed by the hushed graze of his worn palm against the smoothness of your skin as he slides his grip from your waist up to and across the curve your ribs, the soft swell of your chest - the rough pad of his thumb brushing across the peak of your nipple. You sigh into him and he loses himself in the sweetness of it, dissipates, dissolves himself in it, exempts himself of who he actually is, a copy, someone dangerous and deadly and mean - of the things he’s done and will do as he presses his mouth against the middle of your chest. And he can feel the way you suck in a breath, your heart thumping beneath the bone like the rapid beating of bird’s wings.</p><p>You find his biceps and dig your fingers into the muscle, the feel of his lips almost unbearable. </p><p>He flutters beneath your touch. </p><p>Warm muscle tender beneath your fingertips - feather light and careful as they drag across his scarred body, away from his arms, down the plane of his chest. </p><p>He’s sensitive. A little moreso than you’d thought he’d be, but now that you’re actually thinking about it, experiencing it - letting the idea of him creep into every little crevice of your mind - it makes sense. The trust had never been there before. You don’t pretend that you know a lot about him, that you know anything at all, actually, but you do know this - that he doesn’t let his guard down easily - that what you’re doing is more than just an act of confidence. As far as the history of his life goes he might as well be offering you his jugular, head tilted back - his pulse even and steady, waiting for the knife. </p><p>Every caress ignites his nerve endings - the kind of sensation that borders on uncomfortable, on too much, an almost crawling sting but not quite - his body so unused to this kind of physical contact that it’s grown unaccustomed to it, atrophied - unfamiliar with the feel of flesh pressed against flesh, the weight of someone else in his arms, their heartbeat, their heat. </p><p>When was the last time he had been touched? Not in combat when the embrace of another is met with swift, callus, and aggressive resistance. Or in busy corridors - rushing through narrowed streets between sloping buildings, scraping and brushing against shoulders. But in earnest, with something that maybe resembles credence? </p><p>The armor only comes off when it needs to - showers and repairs, eating. You don’t ask about it, but you wonder. He isn’t a true Mandalor. He could take it all of, but he doesn’t - hasn’t - and when he does it’s only then piece by piece - never allowing himself to be that vulnerable, that exposed - not when he’s got you and the youngling to worry about - not when things are still dangerous and chaotic and so far out of his fucking control that he feels like most days he’s spiraling - like his life is happening to him and maybe he should be used to it by now - is used to it but for some reason the disarray is a little harder to deal with now that you’re around.  </p><p>Except in this moment. Things are calm. They’re gentle. And for the first time in a while it doesn’t feel the need to brace himself - to hold his breath - to wait for the bad thing to happen as you move in a dance of revealing each other. Back and forth. A swaying and lulling wave of gestures and peeling, discarding and unbuttoning and pulling until there’s nothing left. </p><p>“Is this okay?” </p><p>“Yes,” he answers, voice close to nothing more than the way smoke is at it filters through a screen - hazy and rough and expanding. “You’ll be the first to know when it isn’t.” </p><p>You nod, just want to make sure because all you want to do is make him feel good - to make him feel better. </p><p>Boba’s hands find your face, then, nearly startling, and cup your cheeks. Then, with a gentleness he shouldn’t even be close to possessing, he pushes your hair away from your face, drags his fingers down the column of your neck, brushes the backs of them along the curve of your collarbone, then your shoulder. </p><p>“You’re beautiful.” He murmurs, more like he’s talking to himself and it feels like your entire body is a garden in bloom - suddenly aburst with heat and life, the emotion in his words giving way to the force in which he uses them. </p><p>You open your mouth as if to say something but the words are lodged in your throat, trapped by the constant influx of nearly tangible emotions he’s putting you through, but whatever you had been about to say doesn’t matter because he’s tilting his head up and kissing you again, his tongue coaxing your mouth open and he tastes like sleep, like a mouthful of words left unsaid, and something so achingly, painfully familiar that it makes you want to both pull back and bring him closer. If only you could have foreseen this, if only you could have given yourself this comfort, known that he would be here with you still and kissing you because then maybe today wouldn’t have been so bad. </p><p>One hand returns to your hip - sliding down your stomach - palm flat, mapping the terrain of your soft skin, fingers then stroking the heat of your entrance. He can feel the way you clench and tighten and flutter around nothing, smiles even though you can’t see it - the muscles there aching, dripping with your slippery-slick heat. </p><p>Then he’s pushing his fingers into you, warm and wet - squeezing around his pointer and middle fingers - your belly jolting when his thumb presses back against the swollen hot nub of your clit, pushing against him in small, slightly paralyzed motions as you keen - </p><p>“Boba.” You speak his name in reverence, like it belongs to the Maker or something equal in his ability to cripple you like this - make you so painfully devoted. </p><p>“Right here, kid.” The bounty hunter murmurs. “Not going - <em>fuck </em>- not going anywhere.” He hisses through his teeth, wrecked and groaning as you wrap your hand around his cock, his lips moving to mouth at your breasts and suddenly there are no thoughts in your head - none at all, replaced with the feel of him in your palm and the way he rocks his hips upwards.</p><p>The heat of his mouth finds your breasts all the while he continues to fuck you slowly with his fingers; taking his time, curling them up, flexing his wrist and dragging his thumb over your clit - trying to stay careful, mindful, find the words to speak a language so fucking primal and ingrained in an effort to explain to him the way this is making you feel, but unable to find the words. It’s okay, though, because all of it is mingling together - harrowingly acute and sharp and so fucking intense already that you flutter around him, helplessly keening. </p><p>It feels like he’s injected your veins with slow-burning fire, spreading sleepily, beginning to envelope you completely, making you pant and close your eyes and <em>whine</em> - sweet and low and pathetic - something that might be his name or <em>please please please <b>please. </b></em></p><p>“Boba,” you whine, fierce and plaintive and it’s all he needs to have you lifting your hips, the loss of his fingers intense and awful, but then he’s bringing you down onto his cock - big and calloused palms gliding up the sides of your body, across your rib cage, up to your breasts where he cups them, squeezing, twisting your nipples between his fingers and suddenly everything is <em>fucking perfect.  </em></p><p>His forehead drops to your shoulder with a groan, his breath stilted against your too hot and too sensitive skin. </p><p>“Stay just like that.” He murmurs, lips against your collarbone, slightly chapped and searing, but it isn’t like you’d be able to go anywhere at all anyway with the grip he has on your hips - retaining a surprising amount of strength. </p><p>All you can do is breath a sort of pitiful and breathy <em>yeah</em> - worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, trying to resist the urge to squirm in his lap, clenching around him at the feeling of being so stretched open, so full and <em>electric. </em></p><p>“Perfect, kid. You’re perfect.” His mouth and tongue are white-hot as he sucks a mark onto the curve of your jaw, has you curling and uncurling your hands into frustrated fists grasping at nothing because you don’t want to risk hurting him before you finally just dig your fingernails into the meat of your thighs, desperate for any kind of sensation that’ll relieve you of your focus on the way his cock pulses inside you. </p><p>“Boba.” Your throat feels thick and heavy with the lump growing in it, his name whiny and lamenting and choked - can hardly process what you’re asking for, you can hardly bring yourself to keep your eyes open, can hardly breathe with the coil that’s winding tighter and tighter inside you, waiting to snap with your first movement. </p><p>“Relax. Just a little longer.” He appeases, his thumb finding your cunt again - the pad of it brushing along the sensitive bundle of nerves in a way that forces you to find all of your self-restraint. “I have you. Take a deep breath.” </p><p>You want to be good. You want to be so good for him. </p><p>You do as he asks, take a big, shaky breath, fighting the way your lungs spasm with the frustration and want building in your chest. </p><p>You tremble anyway, rocking back against him and crying out and resting your head against his shoulder to stifle the sounds that he’s forcing out of you, his fingers never skipping a beat, swiping over the hyper-sensitive bundle of nerves until your arousal turns acute and pointed, liable to snap you in half like a crack in thin ice. </p><p>But then the pressure against your clit intensifies, becomes sharp and fierce, his thumb circling over and over again, so acute that your hips twitch and he keeps you pinned - holds you down against his lap, keeps going and going and going until the world turns white-hot and bright and you’re choking, every breath drawn in fighting against some invisible leaded anchor and fuck - it’s too much all at once, too much after what feels like so long, too much that life can’t always be like this. </p><p>And you realize only once your own haze begins to clear that he’s panting, shuddering and faltering and crushing you against his chest, saying your name - overwhelming and almost too much for you to handle. </p><p>Months of quiet pining, disasters and close-calls, brief moments of happiness that never last as long as they should, all having led to this. </p><p>And it feels like it’s over except it’s not - not as he tightens his hold on you, not as he drags his lips to your temple, then your forehead. </p><p>“I don’t want to move…not yet.” </p><p>He can do that. He’d do anything for you. </p><p>“I’m okay with not moving.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Around The Roulette Wheel | Boba Fett x Fem!Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He noticed you in fragments.</p><p>Registered immediately that you’re pretty, attractive in a sort of innocent way with pretty eyes and a soft, sweet, pretty mouth that pulls into even sweeter, prettier smiles without restraint. Nicer than a person in your profession ought to be, somehow roping him into small talk, getting him to open up just a little, to smile even though he knows you can’t see it, even though you both know he isn’t a good person. </p><p>Even though he really, really shouldn’t be. </p><p>You meet on Canto Bight, a more than obvious stop for you both - filled to the brim with wealthy tourists, war-profiteers, gamblers, and anyone else looking to get lost in the buzzing roar of people and the pounding hooves of fathiers against compacted earth - a good place for someone with credits on their head to lay low, to maybe win big, to get the hell out of dodge unnoticed before someone like Boba Fett can find them. </p><p>Before someone like you can. </p><p>Your paths crossed accidentally - is that how it works? is anything ever accidental? - same place, same time, tracking a target through a crowded casino, all flashing lights and shiny, golden chrome, beeping tracking fob in his hand, pushing past aisles of people like he was displacing gravity with each step, and he was almost to him - almost got ahold of the asshole - but then suddenly you were in his periphery, creeping up on his right and the second he looked away to look at you was the very moment the bounty had turned to look over his shoulder at the edge of one of the tables about to roll a pair of dice, catching the dull green helmet in the sea of people, noticed him and panicked, grabbed all the chips he could hold against his chest before running towards one of the wide, obnoxiously tall doorways that led to the racetracks, dropping credits with each hurried stride, then you took off running and he followed and - </p><p>it was fucking annoying, is what it was. </p><p>Security droids started whirring. The room erupted into chaos, men and women at the thief’s table affronted as if that was the most unethical thing occurring tonight and he was seeing red by the time he got outside. The sky was starry and dark and almost nothing at all compared to the blinding track lights. </p><p>The bounty got away. Boba spent the next seventy-two hours begrudgingly tracking him down again with you - you who had refused to recognize his seniority, his claim on this bounty already - you who inserted yourself into his life like he didn’t have a say in it and maybe he didn’t – <em>doesn’t</em> – but then this weird sort of shift happened, caught him off guard, snuck up on him like the first raindrop of a thunderstorm and he realized that shit, he kind of likes you. </p><p>And it’s not just that you’re good at what you do, either, which just makes it worse. </p><p>You’re smart. A little sarcastic, not afraid to throw it back in his face when he deserves it, not afraid to call him out on his bullshit, ridiculously positive and focused and nothing he does or says goes over your head. </p><p>He ignores it for the most part, these<em> feelings</em> that begin to vaguely orbit, half hidden moons of things he isn’t quite ready to discover, focuses hard on what he came to this Maker forsaken planet to do, which was, objectively, not to run into another bounty hunter, and certainly not to help them either, but here he is having done that, drinking on the other side of a seedy cantina, somewhere far away from the center of the city and much less crowded, much more quiet, watching you from a corner booth tucked in the back with more interest than he should be, having let you convince him that you needed to celebrate, splitting the credits on the smuggler’s head only to spend them all on sunberry wine and a few dubious looking shots of bitterfruit liquor. </p><p>Boba can feel it coming, can almost sense the turn of your head before it happens, can guess that you’re probably trying to find the source of the airy tingle on the back of your neck, this weird sensation of being watched, and even though he knows you’re going to land on him eventually, he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t do anything other than shift in his seat, arms spread out on either side of the booth in a way that would generally, most of the time, make you think this person was the most insufferable, alpha-male nerfherder in the galaxy, but it’s him. He isn’t someone else. And he - <em>shit</em> - </p><p>His fingers flex, the leather wrinkles. </p><p>Maker, he looks so big. And broad. And sure of himself. And you can’t kriffing tell if he’s looking at you or not, but you’re pretty sure that he is - at least 95% sure - the other five percent swallowed up the creeping sensation that accompanies knowing deep down, even if you don’t want it to be true, that you’re right. </p><p>He is looking. </p><p>You avert your gaze, cheeks singed. </p><p>His voice is startling. </p><p>“Aren’t you too young to be in here drinking, kid?” </p><p>You stare down into the bottom of your glass, the palm of your left hand cold where it’s wrapped around the tankard, the metal sweating in the low, yellow lights of the bar. </p><p>The alcohol you’ve been drinking has left the rest of you warm, your teeth fuzzy and your thoughts blurred around their edges, the ends of them tapering off like brushed out cotton. Too opaque to think clearly, but retaining enough coherency to realize that he’s right. That you’re probably too young to be here. Too inexperienced. Green and naïve and bordering the dangerous line between tipsy and drunk. Fighting the desire to order yourself another finger-full, to give yourself the extra little push you’d need to look at him and answer. </p><p>He’s caught you with your guard down, with your skin flushed and your cheeks hot and if it were anyone other than him you wouldn’t care - knowing you’d be able to hold your own easily - but it isn’t and he’s looking at you, pinning you down, and you feel suddenly, ridiculously, like a bantha caught in the headlights of a rapidly approaching podracer. </p><p>It would take you three steps to get outside the cantina. </p><p>Half a step from there to get through the door. </p><p>Four to be in the alleyway.</p><p>Entirely way too many to start climbing the ramp of the Slave 1. </p><p>“I’m old enough.” </p><p>He makes a noise of acknowledgment, raising a finger to signal the bartender. You know he won’t be drinking it  “I bet you are.” </p><p>You snort, trying to ignore that the heat of his attention is enough to have you squirming, the cup in your hand slippery now, and far less secure in your fingers than it had been just a few minutes ago. “I’m pretty sure this place offers a senior discount, if you’re interested, Fett. Although I’m not sure it’d be wise to drink at your age. Wouldn’t want you to fall and break a hip.” </p><p>Boba straightens, cocks his head and it seems like he’s going to say something in response, the air charging around his would be inhale, but you cut him off - a little more unfocused than you thought, a little more curious and eager to change the subject. </p><p>You look over at him, try to find his eyes behind the dark t-shape of his visor, find your gaze travelling to the top of his helmet. </p><p>“How did you do that?” </p><p>You’ve been wondering about it, the dent, conjuring up theories, wondering why he’s kept it, trying to figure out why he hasn’t gotten the helm repaired or replaced. </p><p>“Do what?” </p><p>“That-” You’re conscious of your wrist, of your hand and fingers, as they move through the air and closer towards him, touch gentle against the small crater, cracked in reflecting silver, that rests just above the yellow vertical lines decorating his helmet. “To your helmet.” </p><p>Boba must be watching, or at least be considerably cognizant of the way your hand gets closer because you can almost feel the way he begins to tense - becoming taut - but it’s a different kind of tension you’re only sort of familiar with, having encountered it a handful of times - not as precarious as a snapping, fraying rope might become strained and begin to tear. More like lightning about to strike. Poised. Dangerous. Inevitable. </p><p>Or something ready to sink its teeth. </p><p>“Careful.” He warns, leather fingertips lowering your wrist. </p><p>You let him, blinking slowly. “So you’re not going to tell me?” </p><p>“Is there a reason I should?” </p><p>“I guess not…” You trail off, hand caught somewhere between hovering and returning to your lap, suspended like the lilt in your voice. “But it would make me happy. Sate my curiosity. I could go around just telling everyone you tripped and fell. I know people must wonder.” </p><p>Boba pauses.</p><p>“A duel.” He answers simply after a beat. “Although I might prefer to say that I fell.” </p><p>It had been one of his closer encounters. Years ago, now, when he was less experienced and confused bravery with bravado, despite how just his intentions were. His foolhardiness and need for justice had nearly cost him his life. He never made that same mistake again. </p><p>You huff some air out of your nose, not quite sure what to make of his answer, but amused by it anyway. </p><p>“If I didn’t know any better, Fett, I’d say that was a joke.” </p><p>His chuckle is rich, warmer, but sort of rough around the edges, haunted, almost, darker. “I’m capable of a lot of things.” </p><p>“<em>I bet you are.</em>” You throw back, echoing his words, pleased with yourself. </p><p>The bartender sets down your drink. </p><p>There’s a tense beat of silence, you bring the rim of your mug to your lips and take a sip hoping that it makes you brave before setting the bottom of it down again, shuffling around the metallic coaster the bartender had given you with your first glass. </p><p>“Is that why you came over here? To show me you’re capable of human interaction? Or was there something else?” You look at him again, embers of something warming the pit of your solar plexus, right above your diaphragm, something very similar to sudden affection, to anticipation. </p><p>Not the first time he’s made you feel this way and you suspect it won’t be the last, like the color of a cherry when it bleeds - when it’s squeezed, this weird kind of bleeding pressure up against your lungs that makes the urge to inhale hard to ignore every time you so much as think about him. Soft and quietly aching. </p><p>Ghosts with an awful hunger. </p><p>Boba rolls his shoulders and you think you sense the amused, dangerous smile on his face. “Not many are brave enough to speak to me like that.”</p><p>Is brave what you are? Brave? </p><p>Or foolish. </p><p>“If you were gonna kill me, you would have done it already. Besides, you don’t go after people who don’t deserve it.” </p><p>“That’s true.” He agrees, and you think for a second that he’ll continue, say something along the lines of: ‘who said that you don’t?’ but he doesn’t. He just places his hands on his belt, looking down at you, silent. </p><p>“So…” You trail off, ignoring the way your brain starts to skip and overheat like a scratched holodisc. “What do you want with me?” </p><p>His vocoder shields whatever might betray him, whatever emotion might be in his voice, the little minute details that you’d normally be able to catch from a person, anyone that isn’t him,  suppressed by the durasteel. </p><p>“A better question to ask, kid-” He murmurs as he leans forward, inches from you now, right up against the bar and in your space - hot and heavy and fucking incapacitating. “Is what I don’t want.” </p><p>
  <em>Maker</em>
</p><p>You let out a strangled noise, filled with surprise and want and longing all jumbled together into something so needy you sound pathetic even to your own ears. His proximity has shot you with a dart - has made you boneless, numb and tingling - every atom sedated and ready to do whatever he wants, whatever he asks, just as long as he’s asking you. </p><p>A moment passes that lasts too long, different from the others, too taut and tense and saturated with pre-storm tension and you can hear them in your head, the thundering of electrons flowing between clouds, super-heated and vibrating, echoing with a tremendous crack. You study the angles of his helmet illuminated by the pillowy yellow lights, can only imagine the face beneath it, and you think, not for the first time around him, that you’re in over your head.</p><p>“Oh,” you say very, very quietly, the subconscious sense of being on the cusp of something, an earthquake or an eruption, things inescapable if you’re too fucking close and he’s right there, sending eerie tendrils of a disaster just as deadly crawling up your spine, the hazy, burning confidence in his words like the beginnings of a forest fire ripping through your flimsy veneer - whatever was left of it, anyway - leaving you entirely too opaque to be comfortable sitting here next to him, a little drunk off of a ridiculously cheap tankard of wine, the alcohol eating away at the important parts of your brain that control things like <em>reason</em> and <em>common sense. </em></p><p>Heat beings to roil over you in waves, your body answering with a coiling buzz of anticipation thrumming in the pit of your stomach, so much different than what you had felt in the field with him earlier, entirely too focused on retrieving and apprehending your bounty before he did, that any opportunity you might have had to make yourself aware of what was boiling underneath your relationship - relationship? -  like sugar over low heat, like something beginning to burst, water beginning to boil, went right over your head, going entirely unnoticed for three days and now you’re suddenly at the precipice of something, unsure if you want to tip over the edge with it or need to figure out a way to reel it back in before it makes the decision for you. </p><p>And now you’re here, looking at him, wondering if you hadn’t just conjured this whole thing up on accident, influenced him in some way. Or if you had just been that obtuse and ignorant. Boba Fett doesn’t like people. </p><p>Or at least that’s what you think. </p><p>But his words turn your blood syrupy anyway. This close, he smells like gunpowder, of patchouli and cold steel and leather and a little like burned wood and his soap and you’re reminded yet again about how encompassing he is, how far his reputation stretches, how overwhelming - how you’d let every bit of him start to seep into your pores, congeal your bones, make you so in love with him that you constantly feel like a universe of exploding stars - even if it might end horribly, even though it might end in blood. Wondering, if maybe, just maybe, part of his reputation is doing this, too. </p><p>Sidling up to competition in bars, the rivals he isn’t particularly keen on killing, teasing them, playing in on their attraction to him, then fucking them senseless until they aren’t so inclined to pick up bounties he has already claimed. </p><p>Probably not. Definitely not. He wouldn’t sacrifice his integrity in that way. Not that anyone seems to be good enough for him, anyway. </p><p>So the idea that you might be an exception, that you’re the one thing making his resolve crumble, making him do and say questionable things, is enough to have your entire body singing his praises. </p><p>“Oh.” He repeats, teasing and it’s nearly negligible, you almost don’t even catch it, the shift in his demeanor. The subtle adjusting of his stance, the way his helmet tilts, lower and closer and maybe, maybe, if you didn’t know any better, threatening, too. </p><p>“I know that you think about me.” He murmurs, almost whispers, and it’s everything and too much all at once, something akin to tenderness in his voice, parallel to a softness you’re not sure he possesses, a sweet teasing. “I know why you work. I know it’s what you do best…” </p><p>You’re afraid to move, afraid to do anything other than listen, caught and suspended on the prongs of your desire for him. </p><p>“I had a bounty, kid. You weren’t the mission. I’d usually be warning someone like you, get in my way again and you’re dead….but then I realized something.” </p><p>It takes you longer than it should have to realize he’s waiting for you to ask him what he means, waiting for your mind to play catch up with itself, waiting to see if you feel it too, to confirm it. </p><p>You swallow, your mouth suddenly dry. </p><p>“What did you realize, Boba?” You ask, finding it difficult to make your voice any louder than his own tormenting murmur. </p><p>“You’d like it.” </p><p>You inhale. There’s this soft, lingering glide of his glove as he traces the curve of your cheek, cool against your considerably heated skin, his fingers sloping down until they meet at your chin, pinching softly, gently, carefully, but with a firmness you know lingers beneath every move he makes. He tilts your head up. </p><p>None of this is new, not really. The miniscule amount of space between you like the heavy and compacted and crowded atmosphere of this planet. </p><p>“I-” </p><p>“Yeah?” The smirk beneath his mask is corrosive. </p><p>“I think we should get out of here, Boba.” </p><p>“You think?” </p><p>He wants you to really say it, to be sure. What you think and what you want could be two different things. </p><p>And he’d like the sound of it, too.</p><p>You lick your lips, nod. “We should leave.” </p><p>Boba leans back slowly, fishes into his belt for money to pay the bartender with, and the coins are shiny, new, far more in his hand than either of your drinks cost and he places them onto the counter, the server looking at him with an impish smile as he drags the credits towards himself and stuffs them into his pocket, but you don’t really notice that, don’t notice much of anything at all other than the way Boba hasn’t turned away from you once. </p><p>“Good. Let’s go.” </p><p>The air is sharp when you step outside, cold. Everything glitters, this planet beautiful in an unforgiving way, in a way it shouldn’t be. The blue glow of headlights occasionally zooming past, the soft circles of white coming from buildings. Quieter back here in a way that makes you think of nighttime on your own planet, when there are signs of civilization all around you, but everything has gone to bed. </p><p>The Slave 1’s silhouette emerges. The ramp is already lowering. </p><p>You’re hyper aware of every step you take, of the way Boba follows, the sound of movement and the dull thud of something dropping and the mechanical whir of the ramp as it goes back up and the kriffing blood pounding in your ears and - </p><p>“Boba-” </p><p>His name dies in your throat as you turn around, only to be pushed backwards as he advances, still moving, doesn’t stop fucking moving He’s hot and heavy and fucking devastating, pushing you towards the ship’s panel and you have some idea of what is happening, but not a lot and you’re stumbling backwards, tripping over your own damn feet trying to keep pace with him - unable to look back because he’s kissing your neck, forcing your head to tilt up towards the ceiling - so you squeal - obviously - in surprise when the back of your knees collide with the frame and he’s laughing, all sharp teeth and wolfish smile - hauling you into his lap before laying you down. Your hands fly back, brace briefly against the metal before you figure it would be a better and smarter idea to take a hold of him, fingers digging into the meat of his shoulders. </p><p>You shift your weight beneath him, distantly register the way the fabric of your bottoms cling to your cunt - already wet, of course you’re already fucking wet - heat, scalding and unavoidable, pooling in the pit of your stomach, and you concede that maybe someone’s finally done it. He’s finally done it. He’s broken you. Turned you into some blabbering play-thing, any brain power you had left fizzling out with a pop of static. </p><p>You open your mouth to say something but you don’t know what. You can hardly think with the way he inches lower and lower, the heel of his palm pressing feather-light against your clit and his fingers dipping inside you - teasing, testing - not nearly enough but you know that if you whine now he’ll only torture you for longer. </p><p>You can finally look at him. He’s so fucking close, and you can’t seem to remember how that had happened, how you got from tracking someone down, to drinking in a bar, to this, but it doesn’t really fucking matter how. What’s more important is the why, except you significantly lack the brainpower to do anything other than gape at him. The shadow of scar lances over the bridge of his nose, another one vertical through his left eyebrow. A third on his cheek. All of them with different stories. Who had caught him without his helmet?</p><p>Would you ever find out? </p><p>His thumbs hook beneath the band of your pants that curve across your hips. He pulls them down, tells you to bend your knees and you listen without a second thought, allowing him to strip you of the garment and you’re left with nothing really at all protecting you aside from your shirt but its bunched up around your waist like it has been since he laid you down and not doing a damn thing to stop the shiver that makes you shudder against the durasteel, your heated skin erupting into goosebumps. </p><p>Shoulders, large and broad, nudge your legs further apart and they fall so easily that you blush - your chest blooming in flustered warmth. Boba hums against your skin - leather clad palms sliding up and down the sensitive insides of your thighs and you feel like you might explode from the tension, resisting the urge to wriggle. Your chest heaves with every breath you take, rattles like the very molecules of air within them are shaking, and you look down to catch his gaze - brown eyes swallowed nearly by black with how blown his pupils are - desire so evident in his face that you have to look away from the severity of it - trying hard not to think about how it might have always been there, behind the helmet, secret and elusive, but alive nevertheless, and consuming him from the inside out. </p><p>All the while he continues to fuck you slowly with his fingers, taking his time, curling them up, flexing his wrist and dragging his thumb over your clit - his cuff digging uncomfortably into the juncture of your leg where it meets your torso, but it’s okay because all of it is mingling together - harrowingly acute and sharp and so fucking intense already that you flutter around him, helplessly keening against the steel of the Slave 1’s control panel. If he’s sympathetic to your plight it doesn’t show. He just keeps going. Sinks two digits in and out - adds a third - dipping and stretching you open, the leather glistening and filthy and you have to look away from that, too, sure that at any moment you’d begin to collapse inward, then burst forward, like an exploding star, like pieces of a planet fracturing outwards into space. </p><p>Then he’s kissing your cunt - open mouthed and filthy, rumbling rich and low at the taste of it and it fucking shoots right through you,  makes you squeeze around his digits. Makes you gasp and reach for his hair, dark waves soft beneath your touch. </p><p>You close your eyes, tilt your head back. </p><p>“Look at me.” Boba murmurs, tone as rough as gravel. You can’t help it - it’s all too much and not enough and it feels like he’s injected your veins with slow-burning fire, spreading sleepily, beginning to envelope you completely, making you pant and squeeze your eyes shut and<em> whine </em>- sweet and low and pathetic - something that might be his name or <em><b>please please please please. </b></em></p><p>He won’t give you the same warning twice - not without its consequences - so you aren’t surprised that he removes his mouth and pinches you a little too hard - enough to sting, to make you yelp, eyes flying open to look down at him. </p><p>“I said look at me.” </p><p>You swallow thickly, nod, make sure to keep them open as he returns to your core - hands trailing over every part he can reach. A tether in you begins to tighten - one that’s been keeping you together this entire time starting to grow taut; incinerating and fragile and right there - ready to snap. If he’d just move a different way, let you buck your hips, or just stay - just keep going because you’re so close, your entire body tingling on some precipice and he’s-he’s- </p><p>Stopping. </p><p>Pulling back. Crawling back up your body. A growing and restless ache settling in your cunt. </p><p>Your skin is too heated, feels abrasive against the buttons and controls - every nerve you have frayed - bare and warped and stripped of their protective coating, the one that makes it easier not to crumble so fast beneath his touch. And when he kisses you again it’s aggressive - his tongue sweeping over the roof of your mouth and curling around your teeth - tasting like smoke. You struggle to do anything other than take it - letting him kiss you until you feel like you might suffocate and when you gasp into his mouth he only kisses you harder, chuckling when you grind against his stomach. </p><p>Boba pulls away, watches his fingers take ahold of your soft skin, the little indentations his fingerprints make in the flesh of your waist before he rolls you over onto your stomach. </p><p>“I’ve wanted to fuck you since seeing you in that casino.” You look over your shoulder at him with foggy vision, trying to swallow a whine that would only make him more merciless. </p><p>“That’s a lie.” Boba’s thumb drags against your bottom lip, his thumb pressing against your teeth until you open your mouth, the taste of leather sharp on your tongue. “I wanted to kill you for sabotaging my target…then you ended up being good. Such a good girl. You have no idea.” </p><p>No, he’s wrong. You do know. You could see it in the bar. Could feel it in the way he guided you back to the ship, behind you like a second skin, looming and protective. It’s kind of thrilling the hold you have over him, makes your blood sing, excitement like electricity making you nearly want to squeal with the sadistic pleasure of it - to have a man so powerful, so able-bodied and broad-shouldered and impending twisted around the fingers of your sexuality. </p><p>But…</p><p>“Why don’t you show me, huh?” You gasp, grinding back against his cock as much as his grip will allow. The pants and the flimsy coarseweave of your robes do very little to shield either of you from the sinful drag of it, and Boba groans - hot and wrecked and dripping like honey and you don’t make it to his cot, should have seen it coming because you know what happens when you push him like this, three days more than enough to test his boundaries, so you’re up against the panel and bracing yourself, splaying your palms against the heated textured durasteel, looking at him from over your shoulder and smiling.</p><p>Before you, through the windshield, is a seemingly endless expanse of city. Your cunt tightens.</p><p>“Careful. Or I’ll show you how to use that mouth.”  He threatens, nipping at your ear. You know it’s a promise. He’s been transparent enough around you that you know he never takes back his word, so right now you’ve got a decision to make and your belly dances with butterflies, the jittery rush of skating on thin ice making you giggle because either way - getting him mad or not - you’ll be winning. </p><p>“Yeah? You promise?” You bite your bottom lip and your eyes flash, go dark and heated and it hits him hard, his cock jolting in his pants and - </p><p>The rope snaps. </p><p>His response is immediate, in a matter of fucking seconds, his fingers - so thick and long and masculine and so fucking filthy - climb up the back of your skull and make a fist, his grip bordering just on the cusp of too tight, almost painful. And he uses your hair as leverage to keep you pinned, his knee and then the meat of his thigh pushing your legs apart until you’re stood slightly lower than you were, his cock against your lower back. Boba tugs your head back, speaks between gritted teeth a warning that should be absolutely fucking spine-chilling but all it does is make your cunt clench around nothing. “Watch your fucking tongue, kid.” </p><p>He pulls you closer, kissing you like a lover before pushing into your mouth and scraping his tongue over your teeth. His free hand slips underneath your robe, calloused and familiar, the fabric pooling at his wrist as he climbs higher - higher and higher, brushing against your bare skin until your ass is exposed to the temperate climate of the cockpit again. He sucks in a breath, exhales something you don’t quite catch, and you’re about to whine at the loss of his touch when it suddenly comes back - a sharp sting, enough to make your eyes water and send you bucking towards the wall, but you’re moaning into his mouth anyway, mewling nonsense, caught between placating him for forgiveness and egging him on. </p><p>His belt drops. He pulls himself out of his pants. </p><p>His hips snap forward and you shift a little up the control panel, one of his hands fisting your hair, the other lacing your fingers together, his palm against the back of your hand, and you let out a shaky, short, involuntary whimper as he starts to move, getting pleasantly lost in the feeling of being so stretched and full. </p><p>“Maker, you’re a good girl.” Boba hisses and for a second all you can process is the white behind your eyelids. </p><p>Then he grinds into you hard - pelvis against pelvis - almost painful in its force. His weight is crushing, your legs spread to accommodate him in a way that has your muscles shaking - exhausted in their efforts to keep him there and cement his body pressed against yours - asphyxiating, muscle pliable. It should be uncomfortable, and it kind of is as his hips slam into the cradle of your thighs, but it’s electric - spreads through your body like kerosene - </p><p>It’s overpowering. Everything. All of it. So you aren’t surprised when tears - large and discontented - begin to roll down your cheeks, stop at the curve of your jaw and hang there - begin to congest your head and make you blubber, every word tripping over the other consonants. You’ve never wanted anything else so badly in your life. You could shatter at any moment if he’d just give it to you but he’s choosing to be cruel - to restrain himself because he likes to see how worked up you get. A little sadistic and it makes you sob even harder, air catching over the lump in your throat. </p><p>“You want to cum, don’t you, kid?” He purrs - the velvet in his voice undercut by a current of acidity - almost patronizing in its cadence - slow and languid, pooling in his chest like molasses. You’re mindless, unable to speak and when you don’t he punishes you with a sharp thrust - enough to knock the wind out of your chest and steal the thoughts from your head. “I asked you a question and I want an answer.” </p><p>“Y-Yes,” the world begins to spin as you stare up at him dazed ignoring the ache in your neck, his face inches from yours, your shared breathing hot and fanning, making you feel sticky and gross, but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters right now other than him. “Wanna cum so bad, please.” </p><p>Boba grins but it’s more like a grimace, white teeth perfect and voracious and dangerous and it makes your lungs begin to hiccup, so worked up and indigent that it feels like the entire world might collapse, the walls of the ship collapsing inward on themselves like they might break down with you. </p><p>“Course you do.” </p><p>You arch your back, attempt to wiggle your hips, desperate for friction. His hands around your throat tighten enough for you to see stars - little black dots dancing in your vision, and he pistons his hips, fucks you into the mattress with so much force you begin to move up the pillows. </p><p>A few quick swipes at your clit and you’re letting out a low pitched groan - one that crawls its way up your esophagus - that buzzes and vibrates through his skin as your muscles tense - tighten and ache - and a shiver wracks your body with so much force that every inch of you feels like it must be pressed up against him - orgasm wrenched from you in a way that has you seeing white, lit up like a live wire, the only thing you’re still aware of is his voice in your ear - gruttal and shot-through and thick with arousal.</p><p>Yet he doesn’t stop - just keeps going, fucking you properly now, relentlessly pulling every choked and gargled moan from you that he can. </p><p>You won’t be able to cum again - can’t - because if you do you aren’t sure that you’ll be able to recover with nothing you can use to anchor yourself to reality. The world is blurry - half hidden by your tears, not that you have the energy to put it into focus anyway with the way he’s using your body and the only thing you can hear now is your pulse - rapid and strong, beating in your eardrums. </p><p>But he’s able to drag it from you anyway, agonizing in its depth and magnitude, left tensing around him as you shout wordlessly. </p><p>“C’mon, kid. I know you feel it.” Boba croons and you shatter. </p><p>Bite down on the spongy inside of your cheek until you’re sure that it’ll be shredded and bleeding by the time you’re able to relax, Boba whispering senseless praise into the curve of your neck, working you through it until you’re overwhelmed and then well past it - until you’re just fucking gone - strangled under the gravity of your pleasure. And it’s like it’ll go on forever, caught infinitely in a never-ending loop but then he’s fucking up into you in earnest, pistoning his hips into the cradle of your thighs, filling the air with the sinful smack of skin against skin until he’s groaning and shuddering and faltering, coming with a long drawn-out and wrecked groan into the shell of your ear. </p><p>You collapse, lie there for a long time as the atmosphere goes still. </p><p>“Are you okay?” </p><p>You nod slowly, smile just a little, feel sort of giddy that of all the ways tonight could have gone, this was how it ended. </p><p>“I’m okay. Are you okay?” </p><p>Boba laughs and it’s like drinking something hot after being stuck in the cold with the way it warms your chest. “I’m okay.” </p><p>You nod again, sitting up a little, wincing as your body starts to fully register the way you had been up against a set of buttons and switches. He takes a step back, helps you, picks you up and then sits down in his chair. </p><p>Intimate. Far more personal than you had been expecting. </p><p>He takes off one glove. Then the other. </p><p>“We make a good team.” </p><p>His voice rumbles in your chest, which is a weird feeling, weird being this close and not close to him. Still two strangers, but also not at all. You grab his wrist, brush the pad of your thumb along the palm of his right hand, examining it instead of whatever might lie in his face. </p><p>“Yeah,” you agree. “We do.”</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A Love Left Fallow | Cobb Vanth x Fem!Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The air is soft, quiet, brewing with the gentle tension of a summer storm.  </p><p>Outside, the wind touches and brushes up against everything, its caress echoing the music of the stars, twisting up sand and dirt in small cyclones that travel down the path that splits Mos Pelgo in half. In the morning, everything will be covered in dust. Already, the farmers have put their banthas in for the evening, under shelter for preparation of what’s to come, an almost mindless act now - the practice of a people well accustomed to their land. </p><p>Over the next half hour, what was once sweet and careful will have become violent, but for now you’re content to let the stillness of the night lull you into suspension. </p><p>The refresher is warm with the steam of bathwater, its walls illuminated in the low orange glow of the bloggin-oil lamp. Both items are a luxury on a planet like this one, in which water needs to be harvested from the atmosphere because so little of it falls naturally, near enough to the Jundland Wastes that the canyons - extensive and rocky and hot - might as well make Mos Pelgo No Man’s Land as well. </p><p>An old mining settlement, forgotten by time and eroded by high winds. </p><p>Life is at a standstill here, halted by the starshine, uncomfortable and dragging until it’s nearly impossible to distinguish if an hour has passed or just a few seconds.</p><p>Whatever is left of what used to be stretches only about a quarter mile in both directions, the air thick with dust and heat. Everything moves in slow motion. Where the sun is oppressive, the people have grown a second skin, standing in the doorways of buildings, gazes set hard, but you figure they’ve done that to themselves, making themselves useful by working hard to reestablish the city after the krayt dragon has gone moseying through it, pushing up floorboards and eating pack animals. Done this by trying to keep the Sand People out. To recover from their brief occupation. </p><p>It had once been under the control of the Mining Collective, a group of bastard enforcers that placed, in not so negotiable terms, the entire population into slavery after the explosion of the second Death Star. </p><p>Just as soon liberated, you know, not long before your arrival. </p><p>Still, it had weakened the town, just as these things do. They never quite recovered. And now it isn’t even on modern maps, and most people don’t even know it still exists. </p><p>You hear Cobb approaching. Footsteps. You see him without seeing him. </p><p>You don’t open your eyes, not yet. </p><p>Cobb is careful as he maneuvers through the apartment, a small series of rooms above Freetown’s only cantina. He had refused, you learned, to take a home for himself. Resources had been scarce already, and with many of his citizens put out, he declined to allow them to extend this act of kindness, knowing any of the remaining homes and buildings still standing would be put to much better use by a family or business than his singular inhabitance of it. </p><p>Then you came along, and he thought it was kind of funny, made him - admittedly - a little sheepish, to say that his place wasn’t some nicer looking complex fit for the marshal and that rather, he lives in a bar, but you’re making it work. </p><p>Stepping through your living quarters, he’s mindful of his heavy footsteps. Treads lightly and peels himself of his armor in stilted, half measured movements, places his helmet, then his chest plate, gauntlets and everything else down with just as much caution. </p><p>It’s late. Well past midnight, somewhere around the time when the sky begins to brighten and sand begins to heat up - when he really should be in bed himself instead of listening to the quiet, low mooing of banthas. </p><p>Stripped to only his under clothes, he inhales. Loosens his shoulders, allows himself to relax, enveloped by the soft aroma of old govath-wool and the scent of cooking spices. </p><p>You feel him, his presence, eventually standing in the sloping doorway of the refresher. </p><p>“‘S there room for one more?” He murmurs and you open your eyes, looking up into his handsome face. His silhouette is all you can decipher. Tall and lean, slightly hunched in on himself, shadows catching the angular features of his face. </p><p>You blink, then nod. </p><p>He looks tired tonight, exhausted. The days recently have not been kind to him, and you want nothing more than to smooth out the wrinkles worrying between his eyebrows, to ease the fear and expectation from his eyelids. </p><p>Cobb undresses, drops his clothes into a pile of reds and tans next to the sink to be collected later, murmurs quietly for you to scoot forward, then slips into the tub behind you, the water rising slightly, moving in artificial tides as it dips beneath his weight. The warmth of his body behind you dares you to let it thaw your concerns for him into nothing, smelling safe and familiar, like persimmon and copal, like the spent smoke surrounding a blaster after it’s been fired. </p><p>You swallow, find your voice. </p><p>“What happened, Cobb?”  your whisper pierces the atmosphere without breaking it - not as vicious as he was expecting - sounding almost defeated, hoarse with fatigue and it makes him want to reach out for you on purpose, pull you into his chest and keep you there instead of remaining content with the way you lean against him, but he knows now that if he makes any sudden movement, tries too hard or too fast that he’ll only be crossing a line you aren’t comfortable with. He has to let you come to him, let the first move be yours. </p><p>Your relationship isn’t perfect. Most nights consist of this weird dance in which the both of you struggle to maintain your footing. Neither sure what the other might do, might say. Caring so deeply for one another that most of the time it’s painful even looking at each other. He needs to be better. You need to be patient. You’ve both got your own responsibilities. </p><p>He remembers when he met you. Had squinted into the sunslight, standing at the entrance of the bar, covered his brow with his hand, deceived neither by your hood nor by your closely guarded weapons as you strolled unerringly down the path running through the center of town. </p><p>He liked to think that he had the ability to both praise and appraise women, <em>people in general</em>, intrigued by the way you held yourself, the delineation of your stance. And the moment the thought occurred to him, he was convinced of it: you’re not from here, not just Mos Pelgro, but Tatooine at all. Stamped in your posture, in the way you stood, balancing on your heels like a boxer, your feet planted apart. On a more inhabited planet, somewhere gritty among a crowd of different species, you might not have looked entirely out of place, but here, against the scorching backdrop of a vast desert, in a pinpoint city no one remembers, your appearance seemed out of place. </p><p>Suspicious. </p><p>He looked over his shoulder, whistled quietly and made a gesture with his fingers to the bartender. The alien looked up, nodded in understanding, and bent down. Then returned to his full height with a large glass of bright blue, nearly fluorescent alcohol. Cobb smiled in thanks, returned to the street just as you began to ascend the two or three steps in front of the cantina and his heart just fucking<em> stopped.</em>   </p><p>It skipped a beat. Hiccupped. All those incredibly unbelievable clichés about attraction, about love at first sight. </p><p>Shot you with a half smirk and perhaps what followed might have been one of his most mystifying cases of poor judgement, but he didn’t really care because it got him you. He invited you inside, offered you a drink. </p><p>And it occurs to him now that he had the power to keep things platonic, impersonal, to mind his business. </p><p>But he hadn’t and he’s here now, regretting only that he’s managed to screw it all up. </p><p>Cobb’s quiet, his guilt charging the air, and your words dangle from the ceiling for a few long, dragging moments before he curls against you and kisses your shoulder, his breath hot, a day’s worth of silver stubble grating against the sensitive skin as he speaks. </p><p>“Rontos. A couple a’ unruly ones at that.” </p><p>You nod, grabbing a washcloth. His hands, resting on the lips of the tub, are bruised. Fruit pit red and swollen. </p><p>He watches as you take his wrist and lift his right hand away, your left beginning to carefully clean the delicate skin of his knuckles. At first not realizing that your scrubbing was leaving marks until he winced, hissed through his teeth, and you quickly stopped, having been lost in the rhythm of your movements. </p><p>“No.” he says. “It feels nice. Good. Don’t stop.” </p><p>A saccharine kind of pain you’re familiar with too, something akin, maybe, to your relationship. </p><p>So you keep going, putting more soap onto the rag before starting to move down the rough expanse of his palm, rubbing at the tender joints and muscles beneath cracking, rope burned calluses. </p><p>And you brace yourself for what’s coming: the apology, the feelings and emotions that are easier to face and digest when you’re alone and he’s somewhere across the desert rather than this close - inches away and touching you - alive and safe and if he’s actually kriffing telling the truth you don’t really care. There’s an ellipsis in his voice that has you holding your breath. A pause that signifys him thinking through what he wants to say next, maybe if it’s even worth saying them when he knows a concession, a small and meaningless gift, without changing  his actions means nothing, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t just as guilty. That you can’t be held accountable for how fucking awful things have been lately. </p><p>How weird and awkward. </p><p>Locking eyes across the cantina, across the street, in the middle of doing something else, but galaxies away from whatever it is. </p><p>It takes two, right? </p><p>Because he’s it and it’s unfair. It’s cruel. Makes you feel off-balance, helpless, not sure of anything other than that you love him. A lot. Love that makes every tense silence feel as if it is solidifying like wet concrete, the kind that cracks because it wasn’t mixed right. Makes heat pool somewhere low in your stomach - searing and unavoidable - makes it feel like you’ve got knives lining your windpipe every time you look at him after a long period apart. A kind of love that isn’t easy. A kind of love that seeps, warm and liquid as molasses, into your bones, in which you can bury your loneliness, let it remain suspended and frozen. </p><p>Because loneliness is the worst feeling of them all, a feeling so infinite that it echoes. </p><p>And maybe you’ve been a little unfair to hold expectations of him over things he cannot control.</p><p>“I’m sorry…I am. I know this-” He stops, swallows. “I know this must be tough for you, but I’m doin’ my best here, sweetheart. Protectin’ these people. Keeping them safe. It’s my job. I’m just askin’ you to cut me some slack…please…” </p><p>The room hums with listless, tiny, organic sounds of the world slowly waking up, filtering into the room through a splinter in the window near the ceiling, reinforced to keep the wind and sand out, but broken anyway after the last earthquake - and he thinks that you might be ignoring him, that he’s been talking into dead air when really you aren’t sure what to say, or if you’re ready to forgive him or not. Cobb purses his lips - begins to back up, the water sloshing - already dreading when morning will really come and really reveal itself, the sunlight exposing every flaw and every crack in your foundation and surely boiling over whatever tensions were left to simmer overnight. Everything else just ceases to exist outside the blood rushing in his head. Outside the fear of losing you and he thinks that maybe it’s the spotchka because he had been drinking or maybe it’s the mounting tension in his body that’s accumulated over the course of this fucking thing - of being mayor, of having to be in control of everything, of worrying - or maybe it’s just the way he’s been pretending to be okay that’s finally getting to him.</p><p>Then you’re moving, rolling over to face him and he stops - looks down at you in expectant relief - brings his hand to your hair and strokes it lightly. </p><p>“I hate this-” </p><p>“Me too.” </p><p>The waiting. The wondering. The anguish. You hate it all and yet it’s a double edged sword because for as long as you’re afraid and thinking about him and losing sleep, catching glimpses of each other in crowded rooms, it means he’s still alive - still breathing and still able to come home to you. </p><p>Cobb sighs, leans down to press a kiss to the crown of your head before resting his forehead against your own, and you savor the feel of it, letting your body finally relax,  his presence like drinking something hot after being left to freeze, like the first drop of water after years of drought.</p><p>“And I know you do. I’m real sorry for it, I really am, and I wish things were different, but they won’t always be like this. I’m making sure of that.” </p><p>You’ll have to take his word for it, then, won’t you? Even the worst nightmares have to come to an end at some point, you’re just not sure how long you’ll be able to survive this one - it’s end date uncertain - if it will ever end. If Freetown will ever be completely at peace. You love him so much that it makes your lungs feel heavy, like you’ve got weights attached to the bottom of them, and every time you’re around him you forget how to breathe. Forget how to function like a normal fucking person because he makes you feel so many things all at once, so if anything were to happen to him you’d probably be left unable to feel anything at all - every emotion combusting into some fiery, searing outburst leaving only the inky black absence it made in its wake. </p><p>So your anger dies, fizzling out like a match doused in a cup of ice-water. </p><p>His nose brushes against your own and your mouth opens like you’re about to say something but nothing comes out, choking on the gravity of your affection for him, a knot growing in your throat. His hand goes further into your hair, water dripping from his fingers, down your neck, pressing into the delicate hollow where the base of your skull meets your spine and he uses his hold as leverage to tilt your head just enough to brush his lips against yours; testing, waiting, and when you don’t pull away he kisses you fully - again and again and again - softening your veneer. </p><p>And you reach up, tangle your fingers in his hair, your tongue sweeping through his mouth with an undercurrent of aggression he isn’t surprised to find because you’re pissed and you’re afraid and you’ve got every right to be, so he’ll let you take it out on him - let you grope and grab and pull until you get it all out - until you no longer shake with fury when you touch him. </p><p>His lips are chapped and he tastes a little like metal, like he’s been chewing on them, like what you have let your appetite for love do to you, sunburned and dry, but it’s okay because it’s him, and the emotion he’s pulling from you is starting to grow large and monstrous and overwhelming to the point where it doesn’t matter. </p><p>You taste like sleep, feel like being blanketed in the warm sun, and he’s overwhelmed with the heartache of active loss, the kind that happens when people aren’t paying attention, had missed this without really realizing it until now. All of it, even the bad parts, but mostly the way you feel beneath his hands. You’re perfect. Perfect and so maker-forsaken good to him he doesn’t deserve even an ounce of it and now he might be ruining everything because he’s stuck doing his job, unable to come up with any more excuses for himself other than that it is what it is and it will end when it ends. Hopeful that maybe one day he’ll retire, be able to pass off his title to someone else before the decision is made for him. He wishes there was a way he could have warned you - could have told you of the things to come - but he also thinks that even if he had that ability, he wouldn’t tell you a fucking thing because going through this is hard but going through it alone seems unbearable. He had lived that way for so long before you arrived, has forgotten the way he’s managed to do it, and is certain that if he was forced to go back, it’d just be a case of surviving. </p><p>He’d no longer be living. </p><p>His words make you reach for him with renewed purpose, press your fingers into his back, desperate to absorb him like a cloth soaking up water trying to keep this feeling, make it permanent.</p><p>“I don’t want to lose you. They need you, Cobb, but I need you more.” </p><p>You can’t go saying things like that and you both know it. It isn’t fair that this is the way things are, but that’s just how it goes. You can’t put that kind of pressure on him, can’t expect that he’ll just give in to you like that - even if, even though, he desperately wants to - but you’re careening, falling over the edge of your surmounting feelings for him, so you won’t follow up your honesty with a<em> but I know that you can’t.</em> You won’t follow it up with a lie. </p><p>“Shh…you can’t be tellin’ me these things, honey.” He warns, but your immediate thought is why not, despite the reasons you know you can’t, the ones you’ve already listed in your head, far more apparent when he isn’t beneath you and touching you like this. </p><p>“But it’s true.” You protest, grinding against him with a needy sigh, bracing your hands on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin and muscle like he’s the only thing anchoring you to this planet. And he knows without you telling him, the sudden stab of awareness that shoots through your body, a whistling arrow that makes it feel like at any moment you might lose yourself completely, so he lifts your hips, works a finger inside of you and curls it before you get thinking too hard about what you’re saying, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves just above the entrance of your cunt - then adds another until you’re panting against his jaw, his presence warm and raw and honest, all consuming in a way that has you realizing you had forgiven him long before he ever needed forgiving, and that even if he ends up giving his life to this town, loving him will have been worth it. </p><p>“Hey.” You don’t register it, the command in his voice, not until he says it again. “Hey, look at me.” </p><p>He ducks his head, keeps his eyes on your face and all but forces you to look at him, his movements slowing, but still just as devastating. “You don’t need me. Never have. Thing is, I’m the one that needs you, sweetheart. Probably always have, I just didn’t know it. But I do now, so whatever happens…” </p><p>You have to keep yourself from turning away, from getting out of the bathtub and away from him before he can finish, each of your shaky inhales starting to feel like the rush of a wave, hard crashing and aggressive with the weight of what he’s implying. </p><p>“To me…to this town, you’ll be fine.” He says it with so much certainty that it breaks your heart. Immediately you want to protest, to tell him that he’s wrong, but he keeps going. </p><p>“And in the meantime, I’ll be doin’ my damn best to keep myself worthy of lovin’ you.” </p><p>Cell by cell you slip away, then resurrect. And you tell him that you love him, wishing the words would somehow help fix everything, that when this was over things would be okay, just so that you don’t have to hear the undercurrent of self-loathing and fear in his voice anymore. Things are confusing and you’ve hurt each other, by accident, maybe on purpose, but it’s fine now. You’re fine, in a way you can’t understand, in a way that makes everything seem small and insignificant in comparison to what you harbor in your heart for him.</p><p>Cobb removes his fingers, takes ahold of himself and pushes into you with one long thrust, looks down into the water and watches the way it sinks into you, spreading you open; warm and wet and tight as your muscles clench around the width of it, of him. </p><p>He groans as you gasp, your fingers flexing against him like they’ve got nothing to do, nowhere to go, the sensation of being filled and consumed bordering on annihilating, tripling exponentially in its ruin as you arch your hips and press down on him, sending bright flickers of pleasure through your belly and up your ribs. </p><p>“Cobb-” </p><p>There’s something buried beneath the meaning of your plea that makes his breath hitch, a word, his name he can’t distinguish between a fact or weapon, overwhelmed with this feeling that it isn’t just the need to be closer to him you’re talking about - makes something unidentifiable pressed against the back of his teeth, waiting to be said, burning an iron hot hole in the center of his chest, coating him in a restless warmth that only ever cools when he looks at you. </p><p>“<em>ShhShhShh,</em> I got you.” </p><p>His first real thrust makes your breath catch - hitch, dissolve into something that might have ended up being words, but quickly ends up only becoming a trembling, high-pitched moan, your eyes fluttering closed and your mouth parting and he’s - </p><p>He’s fucking struck dumb by it. </p><p>By you. </p><p>And he’s pretty sure his fucking soul careens with shame, makes him wonder what the fuck is wrong with him that he ever could have possibly hurt you so bad, even by accident, ever could have possibly convinced himself that everything he does isn’t just in devotion of you. And the thought of hurting you again makes something split open in his chest, makes him not even want to think about it, not later and especially not now. </p><p>“I’m right here, kid. I’m not goin’ anywhere. You’re alright.” </p><p>His comfort causes something in your chest to twist, to tighten, spun over and over itself like a cable of rope until you’re hitched on it, unable to expel the air in your lungs. You lift your hand from his shoulder and reach out, brush the sweat-damp and water wet pieces of hair out of his face and away from his eyes with the ghost of an impression that barely counts as a full, solid, touch - so tender it makes him close his eyes and swallow. </p><p>Every day he’s reminded how much he doesn’t deserve you. Every day you do something like this and shatter his heart. </p><p>The heat of his mouth finds your breasts all the while he continues to fuck into you slowly, taking his time, one arm curled around your waist, keeping you pressed against his chest while the other is dragging his thumb over your clit - trying to stay careful, mindful, find the words to speak a language so fucking primal and ingrained in his head that enunciating them requires more brain power than he possesses, and you’re right there with him, attempting some kind of effort to explain to him the way this is making you feel, but unable to find the words. It’s okay, though, because all of it is mingling together - harrowingly acute and sharp and so fucking intense already that you flutter around him, helplessly keening. </p><p>“I’m not gonna last much longer.” You shake from the exertion of being on top of him, the muscles in your thighs taunt and aching, the coil inside you getting tighter and tighter, waiting to snap as the bathwater sloshes, displaced by your movements. </p><p>“Me neither.” He grunts, clenching his teeth, releasing your waist to cup the back of your head, his fingers curling into your hair. He guides you down, rests your forehead against his own, your breathing mingled and mixed and hot against each other’s faces. </p><p>Then your hands are spreading, stiffening and gripping, digging into the meat of his biceps, your entire body going rigid before shaking, the head of his cock catching something soft and electric inside you, ripping a broken moan from just below your rib cage. </p><p>Cobb stops moving, exhaling sharply through his nose. </p><p>The both of you go slack against each other, and several long minutes pass before either of you attempt to move. </p><p>“Did you mean it?” You lift your head only to rest it on his shoulder, skin pruned and tired. </p><p>He looks down at you in his arms. </p><p>“Every word.” </p><p>That’ll just have to be enough.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. No Better Love | Cobb Vanth x Reader</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The school sits at the far edge of Mos Pelgo, opposite the cantina and nearly on the periphery of Freetown, caught in its gravitational pull like a stagnant spare moon. </p><p>The children, from the day they turn six until they’re old enough to decide whether or not to still go, arrive in a small herd at the front door every morning and file inside, chattering amongst themselves at the sound of your approach. </p><p>It was constructed not long after the town was liberated from the Mining Collective, and had been one of the first initiatives taken by their newly elevated de facto Mayor to help the people recover. It consists of an old Collective headquarters building, which they had stripped and renovated from a mining barracks. Now it exists somewhere between both histories - a single room filled with rows of desks. Most of what you’re working with belongs to a time already forgotten. For the younger children this isn’t a problem, since the basics don’t require that much finesse, but as they get older - and more aware of their circumstances - getting them to stay and graduate rather than look for work to help their families requires more convincing than a fuzzy hologram projector and a few donate holopads can provide. </p><p>Today they are eager to leave. For many of them the weekend means a workless, education less forty-eight hours that they can spend doing whatever they want. A lot of them are older, too, and have taken on more responsibilities - have more desires than to stand in doorways or sit on front porches, waiting for the next disaster to strike. Young yourself, you understand that whatever learning they may receive in a forgotten town on a desert planet no one cares to visit might not mean a lot, but it makes you miss when they were little, bright eyed and eager. This planet has an awful habit of smoothing down whatever ambitions lay incubated in their conditioned-less heads not yet restricted by the realities of living here, and with many of your students deciding to test their fates in larger, more populous cities like Mos Espa, it’s not easy getting them to stay.</p><p>“Okay, you guys-” You stand at the front of the classroom in front of your desk, your voice  almost nothing compared to the shuffling of footsteps and their murmured talking as they get up and gather their things, some of the more courteous students at least looking in your direction as you speak. “Come back on Primeday and make sure you <em>do your readings</em> over the weekend.”</p><p>You hope that the emphasis in your voice would inspire a few more to listen, but as they shuffle towards the door you realize you’re only fighting in an already lost war, and that to continue would be pointless. Turning to begin organizing your own belongings, you shoot them with a quick <em>“be prepared to answer questions”</em> over your shoulder before they’re out of earshot, the class-room plunged into a sudden and abrupt silence. </p><p>Cobb stands at the entrance of the school, standing off to the side and just out of your line of sight, watching them run towards the center of town, smiling and greeting some of the kids that pass by name. He instructs a few of them to listen to what you said - kids he knows to be more troublesome than they might be worth - lest he sacrifice them to the krayt dragon, or worse, tell their parents. They laugh initially, but they also know that he just might, and run away looking back at him wide-eyed. </p><p>He waits until all of them are gone before stepping inside. </p><p>You don’t hear him come in. </p><p>He’s glad for it, for now at least, because it gives him the chance to just look at you without the pressure of having to speak, sure that if you glanced up at him and caught him he’d be looking at you the same way he had when your relationship was just starting, with honey-dewed eyes and a sort of crooked, half-smile, like he wasn’t doing it on purpose, rather he just couldn’t help himself. The same way he’s looking at you now, his chest swelling with sudden affection and an almost bittersweet nostalgia - longing for a time when life didn’t revolve around the weight of his responsibilities - but grateful for this, for you, for the opportunities these people have given him, and the freedom he has to do what he likes, when he likes. </p><p>Cobb clears his throat, walks further into the room. “I don’t wanta’ scare you, sweethear-” </p><p>You nearly drop the things in your hands, looking at him with wide eyes before shutting them in relief.<em> “HolyShitCobb.” </em></p><p>He chuckles when you startle, then instantly feels bad and immediately apologizes, but the whisper of his smile that seems to refuse to remove itself from his face once you recover yourself enough to notice makes you think he isn’t that sorry at all, and in fact might have even taken some pleasure in seeing you jump. </p><p>“Are you alright?” </p><p>You shoot him a glare vicious enough to kill someone, but it’s easily overcome by the pleasure of seeing him, and you smile easily - beautiful and bright and eclipsing - and for the second time since walking inside his breath hitches. </p><p>“Yes, I’m fine.” You grumble. “No thanks to you, jerk.” </p><p>Cobb watches you round your desk, then lean against it and cross your arms. “What do you want, stranger?” </p><p>Although these visits are fun, they are tragically rare. He’s got his own things to do that portion off large chunks of his day, things he’d much rather be not doing, but need to get done anyway. Things people depend on him to get done. And you’ve got your own stuff, too. Things to grade. Parents to talk to. Resources to advocate for. Your biggest issue right now the school building itself. </p><p>“Just came to check on the roof. I know we’re in the process of fixin’ it, but I thought I’d see the progress for myself, mayoral duties and the like.” </p><p>Cobb makes a performance of looking up, squinting his eyes and placing his hands on his hips, inspecting the ceiling for all of five seconds before nodding, satisfied. </p><p>“I say we’re gettin’ along just fine. My guess is that they should be finished in about a week.” </p><p>You nod slowly and have to bite down on the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning too wide and giving yourself away. “Uh huh.” </p><p>“And that’s really all you wanted?” </p><p>He looks at you, licks his lips and fights a smirk. “Yep. Like I said, gotta make sure myself.” </p><p>“So…you can go now then, right? Since you did what you came here to do?” </p><p>It feels nice to have these instances, tediums between bigger periods in time like the one you just had - insignificant and maybe not that meaningful but sweet nonetheless, where you can be happy, flirt with him while trying your best to speak in hushed, shy voices, just in case a student comes running back, wondering why the Marshal and her school teacher are talking, right around that age when the only appropriate conversation in kids’ eyes are the ones happening between their married parents. </p><p>You watch him as he glances around the room, getting closer with every step he takes, the door rushing closed behind him with a soft, mechanical hiss. </p><p>“Now, I wouldn’t say that…” He murmurs, close enough to you now that you have to look up at him, close enough that if you wanted to, you could reach out and grab him by the front plate of his armor and tug him even closer. </p><p>“Oh, so you were lying? The roof isn’t what you came here for?” </p><p>“The roof and perhaps somethin’ else.” He concedes, leaning down, rushing you with his warmth. </p><p>“What’s this somethin’ else? Or am I supposed to guess?” </p><p>Cobb reaches up, cups your cheek with his right hand, devotion so heady in his movements that it’s like you can feel the way it passes through his palm and into you. </p><p>“You’re just tryin’ to get me to say it, aren’t you?” </p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You feign innocence, leaning into his touch. </p><p>“You’re lyin’ to me now, too, huh?” He chuckles, low and warm and light, like smelling laundry through an open window when the wind carries it through the house, cool and placid and familiar. </p><p>“Says you! Coming in here for the roof my ass.” </p><p>Cobb shifts his weight, takes on a condescending tone and narrows his eyes. “Now, do you speak like that in front of your students?” </p><p>“Fuck off.” </p><p>“Kiss me.” </p><p>He suddenly turns serious and the unexpected shift makes you stare up at him, blinking, face hot and heart constricting. </p><p>So you take his face in your hands feeling like a lovesick teenager, his cheeks flushed warm with affection, a little scratchy from a day’s worth of stubble, his eyes soft and for the first time since he got here, free from the burdens that normally cloud them, and you kiss him - saccharine and slow and easy. </p><p>When he leans away it’s not without remorse, his eyes still closed and a sigh resting on the tip of his tongue. You’re even less eager than he is, but you both know these little, sweet and perfect moments don’t and can’t last forever, so you smile in spite of yourself and drag your thumb across his bottom lip. </p><p>“You still didn’t say it.” </p><p>Cobb gently grabs your hand, then kisses the inside of your wrist. “Say what, darlin’?”</p><p>You make a face and he laughs, leaning in again. “Ya got me.” </p><p>His voice is only a murmur, his lips inches from yours. </p><p>“I come here for you.”</p><p>“Was that so hard?” You tease, pushing his hair out of his face.</p><p>“Careful. You hurt my feelin’s and I just might leave.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t.”</p><p>He nods easily in agreement, resting his forehead against your own. “No. I wouldn’t.”</p>
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